X-Git-Url: http://www.privoxy.org/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fsource%2Fuser-manual.sgml;h=fc78f12da39f682d1e3663f3c758e0de603a987c;hb=e22a8cad1bac2c28925823b91fa7099a411390e6;hp=541c562d6a9b968306fcbba5de6fa2c2750e5671;hpb=70b9ed04dec24ef32a00a14dbe2a1556275e9bd3;p=privoxy.git
diff --git a/doc/source/user-manual.sgml b/doc/source/user-manual.sgml
index 541c562d..fc78f12d 100644
--- a/doc/source/user-manual.sgml
+++ b/doc/source/user-manual.sgml
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
+
@@ -9,13 +9,15 @@
+
-
-
+
+
+
-
-
+
+
@@ -34,13 +36,13 @@
This file belongs into
ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
- $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.121 2010/02/15 15:30:13 fabiankeil Exp $
+ $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.217 2017/01/23 12:59:45 fabiankeil Exp $
- Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
+ Copyright (C) 2001-2016 Privoxy Developers https://www.privoxy.org/
See LICENSE.
========================================================================
- NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
+ NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
========================================================================
@@ -55,12 +57,12 @@
- Copyright &my-copy; 2001-2010 by
- Privoxy Developers
+ Copyright &my-copy; 2001-2016 by
+ Privoxy Developers
-$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.121 2010/02/15 15:30:13 fabiankeil Exp $
+$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.217 2017/01/23 12:59:45 fabiankeil Exp $
@@ -99,14 +101,11 @@ Hal.
You can find the latest version of the Privoxy User Manual at http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/ .
+ url="https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/.
Please see the Contact section on how to
contact the developers.
-
-
-
@@ -115,7 +114,7 @@ Hal.
Introduction
This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
- Privoxy , v.&p-version;Privoxy, &p-version;
Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
- documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
+ documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
CVS sources). And there may be bugs, though hopefully
- not many!
+ not many!
]]>
Features
- In addition to the core
- features of ad blocking and
+ In addition to the core
+ features of ad blocking and
cookie management,
Privoxy provides many supplemental
- features,
+ features,
that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
@@ -160,19 +159,19 @@ Hal.
Privoxy is available both in convenient pre-compiled
packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
- Privoxy Project
+ Privoxy Project
Page .
- Note:
- On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
+ Note:
+ On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
found. (See below for your platform). In any case be sure to backup
your old configuration if it is valuable to you. See the note to upgraders section below.
-
+
Binary Packages
How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
@@ -180,41 +179,11 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
-Red Hat and Fedora RPMs
-
-
- RPMs can be installed with rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm ,
- and will use /etc/privoxy for the location
- of configuration files.
-
-
-
- Note that on Red Hat, Privoxy will
- not be automatically started on system boot. You will
- need to enable that using chkconfig ,
- ntsysv , or similar methods.
-
-
-
- If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
- rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm . This
- will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
-
-
-
- Also note that if you have a Junkbuster RPM installed
- on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
- Otherwise, RPM will try to remove Junkbuster
- automatically if found, before installing Privoxy .
-
-
-
Debian and Ubuntu
DEBs can be installed with apt-get install privoxy ,
- and will use /etc/privoxy for the location of
+ and will use /etc/privoxy for the location of
configuration files.
@@ -225,7 +194,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
the installation process. You will find the configuration files
- in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in.
+ in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in.
Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full Windows service
@@ -256,28 +225,18 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
command: services.msc . If you do not take the manual step
of modifying Privoxy's service settings, it will
not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
- actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
+ actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
write to its log and configuration files.
-
-Solaris
-
-
- Create a new directory, cd to it, then unzip and
- untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
- things go.
-
-
-
OS/2
First, make sure that no previous installations of
- Junkbuster and / or
+ Junkbuster and / or
Privoxy are left on your
system. Check that no Junkbuster
or Privoxy objects are in
@@ -301,72 +260,83 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Mac OS X
- Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
- icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
- Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
- installation process.
+ Installation instructions for the OS X platform depend upon whether
+ you downloaded a ready-built installation package (.pkg or .mpkg) or have
+ downloaded the source code.
+
+
+Installation from ready-built package
- The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
- installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
- prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
- computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
- /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy .
+ The downloaded file will either be a .pkg (for OS X 10.5 upwards) or a bzipped
+ .mpkg file (for OS X 10.4). The former can be double-clicked as is and the
+ installation will start; double-clicking the latter will unzip the .mpkg file
+ which can then be double-clicked to commence the installation.
- To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
- for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
- starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
+ The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
+ (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
+ configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
+ proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
+
+
+ To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
+ starts up, remove or rename the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist
+ (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
+ /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
+
+
+ To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the scripts startPrivoxy.sh
+ and stopPrivoxy.sh supplied in /Applications/Privoxy. They must be run from an
+ administrator account, using sudo.
-
-
-
-AmigaOS
- Copy and then unpack the lha archive to a suitable location.
- All necessary files will be installed into Privoxy
- directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
- remove this directory.
+ To uninstall, run /Applications/Privoxy/uninstall.command as sudo from an
+ administrator account.
-
-
-FreeBSD
-
+
+Installation from source
- Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
- it with cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean .
+ To build and install the Privoxy source code on OS X you will need to obtain
+ the macsetup module from the Privoxy Sourceforge CVS repository (refer to
+ Sourceforge help for details of how to set up a CVS client to have read-only
+ access to the repository). This module contains scripts that leverage the usual
+ open-source tools (available as part of Apple's free of charge Xcode
+ distribution or via the usual open-source software package managers for OS X
+ (MacPorts, Homebrew, Fink etc.) to build and then install the privoxy binary
+ and associated files. The macsetup module's README file contains complete
+ instructions for its use.
- If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
- the package with pkg_add -r privoxy .
+ The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
+ (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
+ configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
+ proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
- The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
- File Release
- Page , but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
- beta releases which are only available there.
+ To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
+ starts up, remove or rename the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist
+ (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
+ /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
-
-
-
-Gentoo
- Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for Privoxy are
- contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
- but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
- Privoxy Version is added to the Portage Tree).
+ To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
+ for Mac OS X (also part of the macsetup module). This application can start
+ and stop the privoxy service and display its log and configuration files.
- Before installing Privoxy under Gentoo just do
- first emerge --sync to get the latest changes from the
- Portage tree. With emerge privoxy you install the latest
- version.
+ To uninstall, run the macsetup module's uninstall.sh as sudo from an
+ administrator account.
+
+
+
+FreeBSD
+
- Configuration files are in /etc/privoxy , the
- documentation is in /usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;
- and the Log directory is in /var/log/privoxy .
+ Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
+ it with cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean .
@@ -377,17 +347,17 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
The most convenient way to obtain the Privoxy sources
- is to download the source tarball from our
- project download
+ is to download the source tarball from our
+ project download
page .
If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
- version directly from the
- CVS repository .
-
-
+
Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date
-
- As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
- of both the main actions file (as a separate
- package ) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
- download.
-
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.
+ url="https://lists.privoxy.org/mailman/listinfo/privoxy-announce">subscribe
+ to our announce mailing list , privoxy-announce@lists.privoxy.org.
In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
to the latest default.action file we strongly
- recommend that you use user.action and
+ recommend that you use user.action and
user.filter for your local
customizations of Privoxy . See the Chapter on actions files for details.
@@ -436,690 +399,241 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
What's New in this Release
+
+&changelog;
+
+
+
+
+Note to Upgraders
+
- Privoxy 3.0.16 is a stable release.
- The changes since 3.0.15 beta are:
+ A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
+ versions of Privoxy :
-
-
- Added the config file option handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok to
- work around Firefox bug #492459, which causes Firefox to hang
- if JavaScripts are blocked in certain situations. The option is
- enabled in the default config file.
-
-
-
-
- Added the config file option default-server-timeout to control the
- assumed default server timeout. Since Privoxy no longer returns
- an error message for connection resets on reused client connections,
- assuming larger server timeout values appears to actually work
- pretty well as long as connections aren't shared.
-
-
-
-
- Added optional support for FreeBSD's accf_http(9). Use the
- configure option --enable-accept-filter to enable it.
-
-
-
-
- Added fancier Privoxy icons for win32. Contributed by Jeff H.
-
-
-
-
- In daemon mode, fd 0, 1 and 2 are bound to /dev/null.
-
-
-
-
- Resolve localhost using whatever address family the operating
- system feels like. Previous betas would try to use IPv4 as this
- is what most users expect, but this didn't work reliable on
- GNU/Linux systems.
-
-
-
-
- In the action lists on CGI pages, actions and their parameters are
- no longer separated with a space. The action file parser doesn't
- actually allow this and will throw an invalid syntax error if actions
- and parameters in the action files are separated. Not adding the
- spaces means copy and pasting CGI output into the action files works.
-
-
-
-
- The default keep-alive timeout has been reduced to 5 seconds to work
- around hangs in clients that treat the proxy like any other host and
- stop allowing any new connections if the "maximum number of
- connections per host" is reached.
-
-
-
-
- Several webbug URLs that look like they are leading to images are now
- blocked as image instead of empty documents. Doing the latter causes
- WebKit-based clients to show a "missing image" icon which may mess up
- the layout.
-
-
-
-
- The no-such-domain template if used if for DNS resolution
- problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled. Previously the
- connect-failed template was used. Reported by 'zebul666'.
-
-
-
-
- Accepts quoted expiration dates even though RFC 2109 10.1.2
- doesn't seem to allow them. Reported anonymously.
-
-
-
-
- Don't try to forget connections if connection sharing is disabled.
- This wasn't a real problem but caused an unnecessary log message.
-
-
-
-
- The still undocumented --enable-extended-host-patterns configure
- option has a better description.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed an error message that would claim a write to the server
- failed when actually writing to the client failed.
-
+
+
+
+ The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
+ configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
+ is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
+ diff and maybe patch .
+
+
+ There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
+ most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
+ files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
+ to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
+ &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
+
+
+
+
+ Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
+ including configuration files, therefore you should really save
+ any important configuration files!
+
+
+
+
+ On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
+ files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
+
+
+
+
+ In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
+ You can change that in the debug section
+ of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
+ logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
+ as expected.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Three other config file settings are now off by default:
+ enable-remote-toggle,
+ enable-remote-http-toggle,
+ and enable-edit-actions.
+ If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
+ be aware of the security issues involved.
+
+
+
+
+
-
- If you missed the previous two beta versions, you may also be
- interested in the additional changes since 3.0.12, the
- last stable release:
-
+
+
+
+Quickstart to Using Privoxy
-
-
- Added IPv6 support. Thanks to Petr Pisar who not only provided
- the initial patch but also helped a lot with the integration.
-
-
-
-
- Added client-side keep-alive support.
-
-
-
-
- The connection sharing code is only used if the connection-sharing
- option is enabled.
-
-
-
-
- The latency is taken into account when evaluating whether or not to
- reuse a connection. This should significantly reduce the number of
- connections problems several users reported.
-
-
-
-
- The max-client-connections option has been added to restrict
- the number of client connections below a value enforced by
- the operating system.
-
-
-
-
- If the server doesn't specify how long the connection stays alive,
- Privoxy errs on the safe side of caution and assumes it's only a second.
-
-
-
-
- Setting keep-alive-timeout to 0 disables keep-alive support. Previously
- Privoxy would claim to allow persistence but not reuse the connection.
-
-
-
-
- Pipelined requests are less likely to be mistaken for the request
- body of the previous request. Note that Privoxy still has no real
- pipeline support and will either serialize pipelined requests or
- drop them in which case the client has to resent them.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a crash on some Windows versions when header randomization
- is enabled and the date couldn't be parsed.
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy's keep-alive timeout for the current connection is reduced
- to the one specified in the client's Keep-Alive header.
-
-
-
-
- For HTTP/1.1 requests, Privoxy implies keep-alive support by not
- setting any Connection header instead of using 'Connection: keep-alive'.
-
-
-
-
- If the socket isn't reusable, Privoxy doesn't temporarily waste
- a socket slot to remember the connection.
-
-
-
-
- If keep-alive support is disabled but compiled in, the client's
- Keep-Alive header is removed.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a bug on mingw32 where downloading large files failed if
- keep-alive support was enabled.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a bug that (at least theoretically) could cause log
- timestamps to be occasionally off by about a second.
-
-
-
-
- The configure script respects the $PATH variable when searching
- for groups and id.
-
-
-
-
- Compressed content with extra fields couldn't be decompressed
- and would get passed to the client unfiltered. This problem
- has only be detected through statical analysis with clang as
- nobody seems to be using extra fields anyway.
-
-
-
-
- If the server resets the Connection after sending only the headers
- Privoxy forwards what it got to the client. Previously Privoxy
- would deliver an error message instead.
-
-
-
-
- Error messages in case of connection timeouts use the right
- HTTP status code.
-
-
-
-
- If spawning a child to handle a request fails, the client
- gets an error message and Privoxy continues to listen for
- new requests right away.
-
-
-
-
- The error messages in case of server-connection timeouts or
- prematurely closed server connections are now template-based.
-
-
-
-
- If zlib support isn't compiled in, Privoxy no longer tries to
- filter compressed content unless explicitly asked to do so.
-
-
-
-
- In case of connections that are denied based on ACL directives,
- the memory used for the client IP is no longer leaked.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed another small memory leak if the client request times out
- while waiting for client headers other than the request line.
-
-
-
-
- The client socket is kept open until the server socket has
- been marked as unused. This should increase the chances that
- the still-open connection will be reused for the client's next
- request to the same destination. Note that this only matters
- if connection-sharing is enabled.
-
-
-
-
- A TODO list has been added to the source tarballs to give potential
- volunteers a better idea of what the current goals are. Donations
- are still welcome too: http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#DONATE
-
-
-
-
- In case of missing server data, no error message is send to the
- client if the request arrived on a reused connection. The client
- is then supposed to silently retry the request without bothering
- the user. This should significantly reduce the frequency of the
- "No server or forwarder data received" error message many users
- reported.
-
-
-
-
- More reliable detection of prematurely closed client sockets
- with keep-alive enabled.
-
-
-
-
- FEATURE_CONNECTION_KEEP_ALIVE is decoupled from
- FEATURE_CONNECTION_SHARING and now available on
- all platforms.
-
-
-
-
- Improved handling of POST requests on reused connections.
- Should fix problems with stalled connections after submitting
- form data with some browser configurations.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed various latency calculation issues.
-
-
-
-
- Allows the client to pass NTLM authentication requests to a
- forwarding proxy. This was already assumed and hinted to work
- in 3.0.13 beta but actually didn't. Now it's confirmed to work
- with IE, Firefox and Chrome.
- Thanks to Francois Botha and Wan-Teh Chang
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a calculation problem if receiving the server headers
- takes more than two reads, that could cause Privoxy to terminate
- the connection prematurely. Reported by Oliver.
-
-
-
-
- Compiles again on platforms such as OpenBSD and systems
- using earlier glibc version that don't support AI_ADDRCONFIG.
- Anonymously submitted in #2872591.
-
-
-
-
- A bunch of MS VC project files and Suse and Redhat RPM spec
- files have been removed as they were no longer maintained for
- quite some time.
-
-
-
-
- Overly long action lines are properly rejected with a proper
- error message. Previously they would be either rejected as
- invalid or cause a core dump through abort().
-
-
-
-
- Already timed-out connections are no longer temporarily remembered.
- They weren't reused anyway, but wasted a socket slot.
-
-
-
-
- len refers to the number of bytes actually read which might
- differ from the ones received. Adjust log messages accordingly.
-
-
-
-
- The optional JavaScript on the CGI page uses encodeURIComponent()
- instead of escape() which doesn't encode all characters that matter.
- Anonymously reported in #2832722.
-
-
-
-
- Fix gcc45 warnings in decompress_iob().
-
-
-
-
- Various log message improvements.
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy-Regression-Test supports redirect tests.
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy-Log-Parser can gather some connection statistics.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Note to Upgraders
-
-
- A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
- versions of Privoxy :
-
-
-
+
+
+ Install Privoxy . See the Installation Section below for platform specific
+ information.
+
+
- The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
- configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
- is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
- diff and maybe patch .
+ Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy
+ service to more than just their local machine should check the main config file, especially the security-relevant options. These are
+ off by default.
+
+
+
- There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
- most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
- files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
- to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
- &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
+ Start Privoxy , if the installation program has
+ not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
+ Starting Privoxy .
+
-
- Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
- including configuration files, therefore you should really save
- any important configuration files!
+
+ Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and
+ HTTPS (SSL) proxy
+ by setting the proxy configuration for address of
+ 127.0.0.1 and port 8118 .
+ DO NOT activate proxying for FTP or
+ any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
+ browser from using these protocols.
+
-
- On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
- files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
+
+ Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
+ If using Privoxy to manage
+ cookies ,
+ you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
+
-
- standard.action has been merged into
- the default.action file.
+
+ A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
+ most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
+ configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
+ to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
+ to enable the
+ web-based action editor though.
+ Be sure to read the warnings first.
+
+ See the Configuration section for more
+ configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
+ You might also want to look at the next section for a quick
+ introduction to how Privoxy blocks ads and
+ banners.
+
+
- In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
- You can change that in the debug section
- of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
- logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
- as expected.
+ If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
+ blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
+ Privoxy's behavior, take a look at the actions files. As a quick start, you might
+ find the richly commented examples
+ helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the web-based user interface . The
+ Appendix Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
+ Action
has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
+ misbehave
.
-
- Three other config file settings are now off by default:
- enable-remote-toggle,
- enable-remote-http-toggle,
- and enable-edit-actions.
- If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
- be aware of the security issues involved.
-
-
+
+ Please see the section Contacting the
+ Developers on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
+ help.
+
+
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Quickstart to Using Privoxy
-
-
-
-
-
- Install Privoxy . See the Installation Section below for platform specific
- information.
-
-
-
-
-
- Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy
- service to more than just their local machine should check the main config file, especially the security-relevant options. These are
- off by default.
-
-
-
-
-
- Start Privoxy , if the installation program has
- not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
- Starting Privoxy .
-
-
-
-
-
- Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and
- HTTPS (SSL) proxy
- by setting the proxy configuration for address of
- 127.0.0.1 and port 8118 .
- DO NOT activate proxying for FTP or
- any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
- browser from using these protocols.
-
-
-
-
-
- Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
- If using Privoxy to manage
- cookies ,
- you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
-
-
-
-
-
- A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
- most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
- configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
- to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
- to enable the
- web-based action editor though.
- Be sure to read the warnings first.
-
-
- See the Configuration section for more
- configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
- You might also want to look at the next section for a quick
- introduction to how Privoxy blocks ads and
- banners.
-
-
-
-
-
- If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
- blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
- Privoxy's behavior, take a look at the actions files. As a quick start, you might
- find the richly commented examples
- helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the web-based user interface . The
- Appendix Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
- Action
has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
- misbehave
.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Please see the section Contacting the
- Developers on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
- help.
-
-
-
-
-
- Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
-
-
@@ -1130,35 +644,35 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Quickstart to Ad Blocking
Ad blocking is but one of Privoxy's
- array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
+ array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
-
- This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
+
+ This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
- more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
- things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
+ more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
+ things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
problem
sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
- configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
- not an easy way to eliminate all ads. Either take
+ configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
+ not an easy way to eliminate all ads. Either take
the easy way and settle for most ads blocked with the
default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
habits and preferences.
Secondly, a brief explanation of Privoxy's
- actions
. Actions
in this context, are
+ actions
. Actions
in this context, are
the directives we use to tell Privoxy to perform
some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
Privoxy to take some action
. Each
@@ -1170,7 +684,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Actions are specified in Privoxy's configuration,
- followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
+ followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
can actually be URL type patterns that use
wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
@@ -1193,7 +707,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: block , handle-as-image ,
+ linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image,
handle-as-empty-document ,and
set-image-blocker :
@@ -1201,10 +715,10 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
- block - this is perhaps
+ block - this is perhaps
the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
@@ -1213,32 +727,32 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Privoxy 's own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
-
+
- handle-as-image -
+ handle-as-image -
tells Privoxy to treat this URL as an image.
Privoxy 's default configuration already does this
for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
- some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
+ some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
Privoxy BLOCKED page (which would only result in
a broken image
icon). There are some limitations to this
though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
an entire HTML page in most situations.
-
+
- handle-as-empty-document -
- sends an empty document instead of Privoxy's
- normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
+ handle-as-empty-document -
+ sends an empty document instead of Privoxy's
+ normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
-
+
@@ -1255,7 +769,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
- pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
+ pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
replacement is obvious. This is the default.
@@ -1271,14 +785,14 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
-
+
Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
- filters as well. Filters
+ filters as well. Filters
are very different from blocks .
A block
blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
@@ -1293,7 +807,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
the special Privoxy editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
- (shortcut: http://p.p/show-status ). This
+ (shortcut: http://p.p/show-status ). This
is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
@@ -1325,21 +839,21 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
- Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
+ Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
Copy Link Location
from the
- pop-up menu.
+ pop-up menu.
-
+
- Set your browser to
+ Set your browser to
http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
-
+
- Find user.action in the top section, and click
+ Find user.action in the top section, and click
on Edit
:
@@ -1349,29 +863,29 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]
-
-
+
+
You should have a section with only
- block listed under
+ block listed under
Actions:
.
If not, click a Insert new section below
- button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
+ button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
Edit button right under the word Actions:
.
This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
block near the top, and click
in the Enabled
column, then Submit
just below the list.
-
+
Now, in the block actions section,
@@ -1381,21 +895,21 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Submit
(or
OK
if in a pop-up window).
-
+
Now go back to the original page, and press SHIFT-Reload
(or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
-
-
+
+
- This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
+ This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
- site. For a more extensive explanation of patterns
, and
+ site. For a more extensive explanation of patterns
, and
the entire actions concept, see the Actions
section.
@@ -1406,11 +920,11 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
- There are also various
- filters that can be used for ad blocking
- (filters are a special subset of actions). These
+ There are also various
+ filters that can be used for ad blocking
+ (filters are a special subset of actions). These
fall into the advanced
usage category, and are explained in
- depth in later sections.
+ depth in later sections.
@@ -1426,14 +940,14 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Before launching Privoxy for the first time, you
will want to configure your browser(s) to use
- Privoxy as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
+ Privoxy as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
proxy . The default is
127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done
!
- Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and
+ Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and
HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
@@ -1444,35 +958,35 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]
-
-
+
+
With Firefox , this is typically set under:
-
+
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network ->Connection -> Settings
-
+
Or optionally on some platforms:
-
+
Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Connection Settings -> Manual Proxy Configuration
-
+
With Netscape (and
Mozilla ), this can be set under:
@@ -1486,7 +1000,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
- For Internet Explorer v.5-7 :
+ For Internet Explorer v.5-7 :
@@ -1508,7 +1022,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]
@@ -1519,7 +1033,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
- re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
+ re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
any cookies ,
if you want Privoxy to manage that. You are now
ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
@@ -1534,39 +1048,40 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
directory. Except on Win32 where it will try config.txt .
-
-Red Hat and Fedora
+
+Debian
- A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
- the file /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration
+ We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
+ default. It will use the file
+ /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration
file.
- # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
+ # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
+
+
+
+FreeBSD and ElectroBSD
- Or ...
+ To start Privoxy upon booting, add
+ "privoxy_enable='YES'" to /etc/rc.conf .
+ Privoxy will use
+ /usr/local/etc/privoxy/config as its main
+ configuration file.
-
- # service privoxy start
-
+ If you installed Privoxy into a jail, the
+ paths above are relative to the jail root.
-
-
-
-Debian
- We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
- default. It will use the file
- /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration
- file.
+ To start Privoxy manually, run:
- # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
+ # service privoxy onestart
@@ -1583,22 +1098,28 @@ Click on the &my-app; Icon to start Privoxy . If no co
Privoxy can run with full Windows service functionality.
On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
- to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
+ to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
Windows Installation
instructions for details.
-Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others
+Generic instructions for Unix derivates (Solaris, NetBSD, HP-UX etc.)
Example Unix startup command:
- # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
+ # /usr/sbin/privoxy --user privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
+
+ Note that if you installed Privoxy through
+ a package manager, the package will probably contain a platform-specific
+ script or configuration file to start Privoxy
+ upon boot.
+
@@ -1614,71 +1135,24 @@ Example Unix startup command:
Mac OS X
- After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
- double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
- installer package icon and follow the installation process.
-
-
- The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
- installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
- start every time your computer starts up.
+ The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
+ (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
+ configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
+ proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
- To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
- computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
- /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
+ To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
+ starts up, remove or rename the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist
+ (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
+ /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
- A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
- enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
-
-
- In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
- administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
- to uninstall the software is also available.
-
-
- An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
- the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
-
-
-
-
-
-AmigaOS
-
- Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
- startnet script (AmiTCP), in
- s:user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your
- startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
- Privoxy will automatically quit when you quit your
- TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
- Privoxy is still running).
+ To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the scripts startPrivoxy.sh
+ and stopPrivoxy.sh supplied in /Applications/Privoxy. They must be run from an
+ administrator account, using sudo.
-
-Gentoo
-
- A script is again used. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config
- as its main configuration file.
-
-
-
- /etc/init.d/privoxy start
-
-
-
- Note that Privoxy is not automatically started at
- boot time by default. You can change this with the rc-update
- command.
-
-
-
- rc-update add privoxy default
-
-
-
@@ -1789,6 +1263,27 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
+
+
+ --config-test
+
+
+ Exit after loading the configuration files before binding to
+ the listen address. The exit code signals whether or not the
+ configuration files have been successfully loaded.
+
+
+ If the exit code is 1, at least one of the configuration files
+ is invalid, if it is 0, all the configuration files have been
+ successfully loaded (but may still contain errors that can
+ currently only be detected at run time).
+
+
+ This option doesn't affect the log setting, combination with
+ --no-daemon is recommended if a configured
+ log file shouldn't be used.
+
+
--version
@@ -1796,7 +1291,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
Print version info and exit. Unix only.
-
+
--help
@@ -1804,7 +1299,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
-
+
--no-daemon
@@ -1813,7 +1308,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
-
+
--pidfile FILE
@@ -1824,7 +1319,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
FILE is non-fatal. If no FILE
option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
-
+
--user USER[.GROUP]
@@ -1840,9 +1335,9 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
--chroot
- Before changing to the user ID given in the --user option,
+ Before changing to the user ID given in the --user option,
chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
- process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
+ process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
Unix only.
@@ -1852,9 +1347,10 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname
- Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
- resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
- libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
+ Specifies a hostname (for example www.privoxy.org) to look up before doing a chroot.
+ On some systems, initializing the resolver library involves reading config files from
+ /etc and/or loading additional shared libraries from /lib.
+ On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
@@ -1870,23 +1366,23 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
configfile
- If no configfile is included on the command line,
- Privoxy will look for a file named
- config
in the current directory (except on Win32
- where it will look for config.txt
instead). Specify
- full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
+ If no configfile is included on the command line,
+ Privoxy will look for a file named
+ config
in the current directory (except on Win32
+ where it will look for config.txt
instead). Specify
+ full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
Privoxy will fail to start.
-
+
- On MS Windows only there are two additional
- command-line options to allow Privoxy to install and
- run as a service . See the
- Window Installation section
+ On MS Windows only there are two additional
+ command-line options to allow Privoxy to install and
+ run as a service . See the
+ Window Installation section
for details.
@@ -1900,21 +1396,21 @@ for details.
Privoxy Configuration
- All Privoxy configuration is stored
+ All Privoxy configuration is stored
in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
- Many important aspects of Privoxy can
+ Many important aspects of Privoxy can
also be controlled easily with a web browser.
-
+
Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
- Privoxy 's user interface can be reached through the special
+ Privoxy 's user interface can be reached through the special
URL http://config.privoxy.org/
- (shortcut: http://p.p/ ),
+ (shortcut: http://p.p/ ),
which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
You will see the following section:
@@ -1943,7 +1439,7 @@ for details.
▪ Documentation
+ url="https://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation
@@ -1956,19 +1452,16 @@ for details.
cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
Privoxy . This is an easy way to adjust various
aspects of Privoxy configuration. The actions
- file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
+ file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
- Toggle Privoxy On or Off
is handy for sites that might
+ Toggle Privoxy On or Off
is handy for sites that might
have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
- it as a test to see whether it is Privoxy
- causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues
+ it as a test to see whether it is Privoxy
+ causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues
to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
- Privoxy acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
- is even a toggle Bookmarklet offered, so
- that you can toggle Privoxy with one click from
- your browser.
+ Privoxy acts like a normal forwarding proxy.
@@ -1993,14 +1486,14 @@ for details.
For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
/etc/privoxy/ by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
- AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
+ AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
Privoxy executable.
- The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
+ The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
principle configuration files are:
@@ -2014,7 +1507,7 @@ for details.
on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and config.txt
on Windows. This is a required file.
-
+
@@ -2028,23 +1521,23 @@ for details.
It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
- Multiple actions files may be defined in config . These
- are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
+ Multiple actions files may be defined in config . These
+ are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
match-all.action (which you will most probably want
to define sooner or later) are best applied in user.action ,
where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
-
+
There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
(Shortcut: http://p.p/show-status ) for the
- various actions files.
+ various actions files.
-
+
@@ -2052,15 +1545,15 @@ for details.
file) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
- whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
- default.filter includes various filters made
- available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
- others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
- filter files in config as you can with
- actions files. We suggest user.filter for any
+ whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
+ default.filter includes various filters made
+ available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
+ others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
+ filter files in config as you can with
+ actions files. We suggest user.filter for any
locally defined filters or customizations.
-
+
@@ -2082,15 +1575,15 @@ for details.
- The actions files and filter files
+ The actions files and filter files
can use Perl style regular expressions for
- maximum flexibility.
+ maximum flexibility.
After making any changes, there is no need to restart
Privoxy in order for the changes to take
- effect. Privoxy detects such changes
+ effect. Privoxy detects such changes
automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
of Privoxy , these wake up
requests
@@ -2099,9 +1592,9 @@ for details.
- While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
- The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
- Also, what constitutes a default
setting, may change, so
+ While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
+ The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
+ Also, what constitutes a default
setting, may change, so
please check all your configuration files on important issues.
]]>
@@ -2137,15 +1630,15 @@ for details.
The actions files are used to define what actions
Privoxy takes for which URLs, and thus determines
how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
- transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
+ transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
Each action does something a little different.
- These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
- our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
+ These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
+ our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
-
+
- There
+ There
are three action files included with Privoxy with
differing purposes:
@@ -2158,7 +1651,7 @@ for details.
content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
It should be the first actions file loaded
-
+
default.action - defines many exceptions (both
@@ -2167,15 +1660,15 @@ for details.
work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
-
+
- user.action - is intended to be for local site
+ user.action - is intended to be for local site
preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
- has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
+ has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
-
+
Edit Set to Cautious Set to Medium Set to Advanced
@@ -2183,16 +1676,16 @@ for details.
These have increasing levels of aggressiveness and have no
influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
- editor . A default installation should be pre-set to
+ editor. A default installation should be pre-set to
Cautious . New users should try this for a while before
- adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
- the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
+ adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
+ the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
not working as they should.
- The Edit button allows you to turn each
+ The Edit button allows you to turn each
action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The Cautious
- button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
+ button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
Medium button sets the list to a medium level of
@@ -2263,7 +1756,7 @@ for details.
blocks only
blocks only
-
+
Privacy Features
low
@@ -2332,12 +1825,12 @@ for details.
-
+
-
+
- The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
+ The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
default.action is typically processed before
user.action ). The content of these can all be viewed and
@@ -2348,7 +1841,7 @@ for details.
(defined in default.action ),
followed by any exceptions (typically also in
default.action ), which are then followed lastly by any
- local preferences (typically in user .action ).
+ local preferences (typically in user .action ).
Generally, user.action has the last word.
@@ -2358,7 +1851,7 @@ for details.
alias section at the top of that file.
Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
sites and pages (be very careful with using such a
- universal set in user.action or any other actions file after
+ universal set in user.action or any other actions file after
default.action , because it will override the result
from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
@@ -2367,7 +1860,7 @@ for details.
personal settings across Privoxy upgrades easier.
-
+
Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
@@ -2377,13 +1870,13 @@ for details.
-
+
Finding the Right Mix
Note that some actions, like cookie suppression
or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
- certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
+ certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
aggressive
your default settings (in the top section of the
actions file) are, the more exceptions for trusted
sites you
@@ -2402,7 +1895,7 @@ for details.
-
+
How to Edit
The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
@@ -2415,13 +1908,13 @@ for details.
like Cautious
, Medium
or
Advanced
. Warning: the Advanced
setting is more
aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
- Experienced users only!
+ Experienced users only!
If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
- default.action which is richly commented with many
+ default.action which is richly commented with many
good examples.
@@ -2449,12 +1942,12 @@ for details.
If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
- E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of {
+ E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of {
+ handle-as-image } ,
then later another one with just {
+ block } , resulting
- in both actions to apply. And there may well be
- cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
+ in both actions to apply. And there may well be
+ cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
might look like:
@@ -2481,7 +1974,7 @@ for details.
Patterns
-
+
As mentioned, Privoxy uses patterns
to determine what actions might apply to which sites and
pages your browser attempts to access. These patterns
use wild
@@ -2489,26 +1982,26 @@ for details.
flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
against many similar patterns.
-
+
Generally, an URL pattern has the form
- <domain><port>/<path> , where the
- <domain> , the <port>
+ <host><port>/<path> , where the
+ <host> , the <port>
and the <path> are optional. (This is why the special
/ pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
portion of the URL pattern (e.g. http:// ) should
not be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
- The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
- the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
- while the path part uses more flexible
+ The pattern matching syntax is different for the host and path parts of
+ the URL. The host part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
+ while the path part uses more flexible
Regular
Expressions
(POSIX 1003.2).
The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
- (: ). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
+ (: ). If the host part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
it has to be put into angle brackets
(< , > ).
@@ -2518,9 +2011,9 @@ for details.
www.example.com/
- is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to www.example.com ,
+ is a host-only pattern and will match any request to www.example.com ,
regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
- this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
+ this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
simple example.com is different and would NOT match.
@@ -2529,7 +2022,7 @@ for details.
www.example.com
- means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing / may
+ means exactly the same. For host-only patterns, the trailing / may
be omitted.
@@ -2561,6 +2054,15 @@ for details.
+
+ /
+
+
+ Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
+ domain or the path to match anything.
+
+
+
:8000/
@@ -2569,6 +2071,15 @@ for details.
+
+ 10.0.0.1/
+
+
+ Matches any URL with the host address 10.0.0.1 .
+ (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
+
+
+
<2001:db8::1>/
@@ -2583,7 +2094,7 @@ for details.
matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
- there is no top-level domain called .html . So its
+ there is no top-level domain called .html . So its
a mistake.
@@ -2592,11 +2103,13 @@ for details.
-The Domain Pattern
+The Host Pattern
- The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
- domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
+ The matching of the host part offers some flexible options: if the
+ host pattern starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
+ The host pattern is often referred to as domain pattern as it is usually
+ used to match domain names and not IP addresses.
For example:
@@ -2634,7 +2147,7 @@ for details.
a domain.) This might be www.example.com ,
news.example.de , or
www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl for instance. All these
- cases are matched.
+ cases are matched.
@@ -2644,12 +2157,12 @@ for details.
Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
*
represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
- equivalent to the
+ equivalent to the
Regular
Expression
based syntax of .*
),
?
represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
regular expression syntax of a simple .
), and you can define
- character classes
in square brackets which is similar to
+ character classes
in square brackets which is similar to
the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
@@ -2658,7 +2171,7 @@ for details.
ad*.example.com
- matches adserver.example.com
,
+ matches adserver.example.com
,
ads.example.com
, etc but not sfads.example.com
@@ -2676,7 +2189,7 @@ for details.
matches www.ipix.com ,
- pictures.epix.com , a.b.c.d.e.upix.com etc.
+ pictures.epix.com , a.b.c.d.e.upix.com etc.
@@ -2684,9 +2197,9 @@ for details.
www[1-9a-ez].example.c*
- matches www1.example.com ,
- www4.example.cc , wwwd.example.cy ,
- wwwz.example.com etc., but not
+ matches www1.example.com ,
+ www4.example.cc , wwwd.example.cy ,
+ wwwz.example.com etc., but not
wwww.example.com .
@@ -2703,7 +2216,7 @@ for details.
-The Path Pattern
+The Path Pattern
Privoxy uses modern
POSIX 1003.2
@@ -2720,13 +2233,13 @@ for details.
Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the /
,
- i.e. it matches as if it would start with a ^
(regular expression speak
+ i.e. it matches as if it would start with a ^
(regular expression speak
for the beginning of a line).
Please also note that matching in the path is CASE INSENSITIVE
- by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
+ by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
(?-i)
switch: www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* will match
only documents whose path starts with PaTtErN in
exactly this capitalization.
@@ -2737,7 +2250,7 @@ for details.
.example.com/.*
- Is equivalent to just .example.com
, since any documents
+ Is equivalent to just .example.com
, since any documents
within that domain are matched with or without the .*
regular expression. This is redundant
@@ -2751,9 +2264,9 @@ for details.
named index.html
, and that is part of some path. For
example, it matches www.example.com/testing/index.html
but
NOT www.example.com/index.html
because the regular
- expression called for at least two /'s
, thus the path
- requirement. It also would match
- www.example.com/testing/index_html
, because of the
+ expression called for at least two /'s
, thus the path
+ requirement. It also would match
+ www.example.com/testing/index_html
, because of the
special meta-character .
.
@@ -2762,9 +2275,9 @@ for details.
.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$
- This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
- named index.html
regardless of path which in this case can
- have one or more /'s
. And this one must contain exactly
+ This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
+ named index.html
regardless of path which in this case can
+ have one or more /'s
. And this one must contain exactly
.html
(but does not have to end with that!).
@@ -2774,7 +2287,7 @@ for details.
This regular expression will match any path of example.com
- that contains any of the words ads
, banner
,
+ that contains any of the words ads
, banner
,
banners
(because of the ?
) or junk
.
The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
@@ -2784,8 +2297,8 @@ for details.
.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$
- This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
- .jpg
, .jpeg
, .gif
or .png
. So this
+ This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
+ .jpg
, .jpeg
, .gif
or .png
. So this
one is limited to common image formats.
@@ -2793,7 +2306,7 @@ for details.
- There are many, many good examples to be found in default.action ,
+ There are many, many good examples to be found in default.action ,
and more tutorials below in Appendix on regular expressions.
@@ -2803,18 +2316,18 @@ for details.
-The Tag Pattern
+The Request Tag Pattern
- Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
- request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
- client-header-tagger
+ Request tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
+ request's tags. Tags can be created based on HTTP headers with either
+ the client-header-tagger
or the server-header-tagger action.
- Tag patterns have to start with TAG:
, so &my-app;
- can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
+ Request tag patterns have to start with TAG:
, so &my-app;
+ can tell them apart from other patterns. Everything after the colon
including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a ^
,
@@ -2830,15 +2343,15 @@ for details.
- Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
- but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
+ Sections can contain URL and request tag patterns at the same time,
+ but request tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
- Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
- of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
- tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
+ Once a new request tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
+ of the request tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
+ request tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
@@ -2862,44 +2375,120 @@ for details.
-
+
+The Negative Request Tag Patterns
-
+
+ To match requests that do not have a certain request tag, specify a negative tag pattern
+ by prefixing the tag pattern line with either NO-REQUEST-TAG:
+ or NO-RESPONSE-TAG:
instead of TAG:
.
+
+
+ Negative request tag patterns created with NO-REQUEST-TAG:
are checked
+ after all client headers are scanned, the ones created with NO-RESPONSE-TAG:
+ are checked after all server headers are scanned. In both cases all the created
+ tags are considered.
+
+
+The Client Tag Pattern
-
-Actions
-
- All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
- somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
- +
, and turned off if preceded with a -
. So a
- +action means do that action
, e.g.
- +block means please block URLs that match the
- following patterns
, and -block means don't
- block URLs that match the following patterns, even if +block
- previously applied.
+
+
+
+ This is an experimental feature. The syntax is likely to change in future versions.
+
-
- Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
- separated by whitespace, like in
- {+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}} ,
- followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
- Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
- of the actions file.
+
+ Client tag patterns are not set based on HTTP headers but based on
+ the client's IP address. Users can enable them themselves, but the
+ Privoxy admin controls which tags are available and what their effect
+ is.
-
+
+ After a client-specific tag has been defined with the
+ client-specific-tag,
+ directive, action sections can be activated based on the tag by using a
+ CLIENT-TAG pattern. The CLIENT-TAG pattern is evaluated at the same priority
+ as URL patterns, as a result the last matching pattern wins. Tags that
+ are created based on client or server headers are evaluated later on
+ and can overrule CLIENT-TAG and URL patterns!
+
+
+ The tag is set for all requests that come from clients that requested
+ it to be set. Note that "clients" are differentiated by IP address,
+ if the IP address changes the tag has to be requested again.
+
+
+ Clients can request tags to be set by using the CGI interface http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags .
+
+
+
+ Example:
+
+
+
+
+# If the admin defined the client-specific-tag circumvent-blocks,
+# and the request comes from a client that previously requested
+# the tag to be set, overrule all previous +block actions that
+# are enabled based on URL to CLIENT-TAG patterns.
+{-block}
+CLIENT-TAG:^circumvent-blocks$
+
+# This section is not overruled because it's located after
+# the previous one.
+{+block{Nobody is supposed to request this.}}
+example.org/blocked-example-page
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Actions
+
+ All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
+ somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
+ +
, and turned off if preceded with a -
. So a
+ +action means do that action
, e.g.
+ +block means please block URLs that match the
+ following patterns
, and -block means don't
+ block URLs that match the following patterns, even if +block
+ previously applied.
+
+
+
+
+ Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
+ separated by whitespace, like in
+ {+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}} ,
+ followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
+ Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
+ of the actions file.
+
+
+
Actions fall into three categories:
-
+
Boolean, i.e the action can only be enabled
or
disabled
. Syntax:
@@ -2908,14 +2497,14 @@ for details.
+name # enable action name
-name # disable action name
-
+
Example: +handle-as-image
-
+
Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
Syntax:
@@ -2929,13 +2518,13 @@ for details.
Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
-
+
Example: +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}
-
+
-
+
Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
same URL, but with different parameters, all the parameters
@@ -2950,7 +2539,7 @@ for details.
# If it was the last one left, disable the action.
-name # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list
-
+
Examples: +add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text} and
+filter{html-annoyances}
@@ -2969,8 +2558,8 @@ for details.
Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
- So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
- in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
+ So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
+ in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
as user.action ). For multi-valued actions, the actions
are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
the order they are defined in config (the default
@@ -3022,7 +2611,7 @@ for details.
Multi-value.
-
+
Parameter:
@@ -3033,14 +2622,14 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
- This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
- headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
- HTTP headers
are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
+ This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
+ headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
+ HTTP headers
are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
one.
@@ -3053,7 +2642,16 @@ for details.
Example usage:
- +add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}
+ # Add a DNT ("Do not track") header to all requests,
+# event to those that already have one.
+#
+# This is just an example, not a recommendation.
+#
+# There is no reason to believe that user-tracking websites care
+# about the DNT header and depending on the User-Agent, adding the
+# header may make user-tracking easier.
+{+add-header{DNT: 1}}
+/
@@ -3083,10 +2681,10 @@ for details.
the handle-as-image ,
set-image-blocker , and
+ linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker, and
handle-as-empty-document actions.
-
+
@@ -3105,7 +2703,7 @@ for details.
A block reason that should be given to the user.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3116,18 +2714,18 @@ for details.
to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
enabled).
-
- A very important exception occurs if both
+
+ A very important exception occurs if both
block and handle-as-image ,
- apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
+ apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
set-image-blocker
(see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
- It is important to understand this process, in order
- to understand how Privoxy deals with
- ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
+ It is important to understand this process, in order
+ to understand how Privoxy deals with
+ ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
upon which various other features depend.
@@ -3148,12 +2746,12 @@ for details.
# Block and replace with "blocked" page
.nasty-stuff.example.com
-{+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
+{+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
# Block and replace with image
.ad.doubleclick.net
.ads.r.us/banners/
-{+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
+{+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
# Block and then ignore
adserver.example.net/.*\.js$
@@ -3211,7 +2809,7 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3263,7 +2861,7 @@ for details.
Type:
- Parameterized.
+ Multi-value.
@@ -3276,7 +2874,7 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3291,7 +2889,7 @@ for details.
and use their output as input.
- If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
+ If the request URI gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
@@ -3313,7 +2911,7 @@ for details.
{+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
/
-
+
@@ -3341,7 +2939,7 @@ for details.
Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
- tag.
+ tag.
@@ -3350,7 +2948,7 @@ for details.
Type:
- Parameterized.
+ Multi-value.
@@ -3363,7 +2961,7 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3407,6 +3005,22 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
+
+
+
+# Tag all requests with the Range header set
+{+client-header-tagger{range-requests}}
+/
+
+# Disable filtering for the tagged requests.
+#
+# With filtering enabled Privoxy would remove the Range headers
+# to be able to filter the whole response. The downside is that
+# it prevents clients from resuming downloads or skipping over
+# parts of multimedia files.
+{-filter -deanimate-gifs}
+TAG:^RANGE-REQUEST$
+
@@ -3448,11 +3062,11 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
Parameter:
- Any string.
-
+ Any string.
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3461,7 +3075,7 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
- supported by the browser.
+ supported by the browser.
The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
@@ -3475,13 +3089,13 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
Content-Type: text/html
, you can use &my-app;
to overwrite it with application/xml
and validate
the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
- If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
+ If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
- text/html
and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
+ text/html
and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
By default content-type-overwrite only replaces
@@ -3499,7 +3113,7 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
Of course you can apply content-type-overwrite
to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
- more work to get the same precision.
+ more work to get the same precision.
@@ -3561,10 +3175,10 @@ new action
Any string.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3597,7 +3211,7 @@ new action
Example usage (section):
- # Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
+ # Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
{ +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
/
@@ -3644,10 +3258,10 @@ new action
N/A
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3731,7 +3345,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3744,7 +3358,7 @@ new action
It makes no sense at all to use this action in conjunction
with the session-cookies-only action,
- since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
+ since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
filter-content-cookies .
@@ -3798,10 +3412,10 @@ new action
Any string.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3882,7 +3496,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3950,7 +3564,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -4018,16 +3632,26 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
This is a left-over from the time when Privoxy
didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
- unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
- out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
- so there is a chance you might need this action.
+ unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1-related problems with some server
+ out there.
+
+
+ Note that enabling this action is only a workaround. It should not
+ be enabled for sites that work without it. While it shouldn't break
+ any pages, it has an (usually negative) performance impact.
+
+
+ If you come across a site where enabling this action helps, please report it,
+ so the cause of the problem can be analyzed. If the problem turns out to be
+ caused by a bug in Privoxy it should be
+ fixed so the following release works without the work around.
@@ -4045,6 +3669,94 @@ problem-host.example.com
+
+
+external-filter
+
+
+
+ Typical use:
+
+ Modify content using a programming language of your choice.
+
+
+
+
+ Effect:
+
+
+ All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
+ this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified external
+ filter.
+ By default plain text documents are exempted from filtering, because web
+ servers often use the text/plain MIME type for all files
+ whose type they don't know.)
+
+
+
+
+
+ Type:
+
+
+ Multi-value.
+
+
+
+
+ Parameter:
+
+
+ The name of an external content filter, as defined in the
+ filter file.
+ External filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
+ filterfile
+ option in the config file.
+
+
+ When used in its negative form,
+ and without parameters, all filtering with external
+ filters is completely disabled.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Notes:
+
+
+ External filters are scripts or programs that can modify the content in
+ case common filters
+ aren't powerful enough. With the exception that this action doesn't
+ use pcrs-based filters, the notes in the
+ filter section apply.
+
+
+
+ Currently external filters are executed with &my-app;'s privileges.
+ Only use external filters you understand and trust.
+
+
+
+ This feature is experimental, the syntax
+ may change in the future.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Example usage:
+
+
+ +external-filter{fancy-filter}
+
+
+
+
+
+
fast-redirects
@@ -4098,7 +3810,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
Notes:
-
+
Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
@@ -4116,7 +3828,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
- this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
+ this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
@@ -4157,7 +3869,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
{ +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
- one.example.com
+ one.example.com
{ +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
another.example.com/testing
@@ -4177,7 +3889,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
Typical use:
- Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
+ Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.
@@ -4199,20 +3911,20 @@ problem-host.example.com
Type:
- Parameterized.
+ Multi-value.
-
+
Parameter:
The name of a content filter, as defined in the filter file.
- Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
+ Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
filterfile
- option in the config file.
- default.filter is the collection of filters
- supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
+ option in the config file.
+ default.filter is the collection of filters
+ supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
in their own file, such as user.filter .
@@ -4221,38 +3933,39 @@ problem-host.example.com
-
+
Notes:
- For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
+ For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
a list.
Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
- passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
- since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
- noticeable on slower connections.
+ passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
+ doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
+ not incrementally displayed.)
+ This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
Rolling your own
- filters requires a knowledge of
+ filters requires a knowledge of
Regular
- Expressions
and
+ Expressions and
HTML
.
- This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
+ This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
action
is not available.
- The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
+ The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
buffer-limit
- option in the main config file. The
+ option in the main config file. The
default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
- data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
+ data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
@@ -4263,10 +3976,10 @@ problem-host.example.com
by defining appropriate -filter exceptions.
- Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
- is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
- in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
- it.
+ Compressed content can't be filtered either, but if &my-app;
+ is compiled with zlib support and a supported compression algorithm
+ is used (gzip or deflate), &my-app; can first decompress the content
+ and then filter it.
If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
@@ -4275,11 +3988,11 @@ problem-host.example.com
action in conjunction with filter .
- Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
+ Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
block
- action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
- works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
- based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
+ action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
+ works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
+ based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
standardized.
@@ -4297,7 +4010,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
Example usage (with filters from the distribution default.filter file).
- See the Predefined Filters section for
+ See the Predefined Filters section for
more explanation on each:
@@ -4306,7 +4019,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
- +filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).
+ +filter{js-events} # Kill JavaScript event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).
@@ -4318,15 +4031,15 @@ problem-host.example.com
- +filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).
+ +filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags if refresh time is larger than 9 seconds.
@@ -4356,6 +4069,10 @@ problem-host.example.com
+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.
+
+
+ +filter{iframes} # Removes all detected iframes. Should only be enabled for individual sites.
+
+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.
@@ -4429,7 +4146,7 @@ new action
Declares a document as text, even if the Content-Type:
isn't detected as such.
-
+
@@ -4461,7 +4178,7 @@ new action
force-text-mode declares a document as text,
without looking at the Content-Type:
first.
-
+
Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
with regular expressions can cause file damage.
@@ -4469,7 +4186,7 @@ new action
-
+
Example usage:
@@ -4503,7 +4220,7 @@ new action
Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
-
+
@@ -4511,7 +4228,7 @@ new action
Type:
- Multi-value.
+ Parameterized.
@@ -4544,6 +4261,32 @@ new action
for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
+
+
+ forward-webserver 127.0.0.1:80
to use the HTTP
+ server listening at 127.0.0.1 port 80 without adjusting the
+ request headers.
+
+
+ This makes it more convenient to use Privoxy to make
+ existing websites available as onion services as well.
+
+
+ Many websites serve content with hardcoded URLs and
+ can't be easily adjusted to change the domain based
+ on the one used by the client.
+
+
+ Putting Privoxy between Tor and the webserver (or an stunnel
+ that forwards to the webserver) allows to rewrite headers and
+ content to make client and server happy at the same time.
+
+
+ Using Privoxy for webservers that are only reachable through
+ onion addresses and whose location is supposed to be secret
+ is not recommended and should not be necessary anyway.
+
+
@@ -4557,7 +4300,7 @@ new action
file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
-
+
Please read the description for the forward directives before
using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
@@ -4566,7 +4309,8 @@ new action
If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
- to exit.
+ to exit. Due to design limitations, invalid parameter syntax isn't detected until the
+ action is used the first time.
Use the show-url-info CGI page
@@ -4575,21 +4319,23 @@ new action
-
+
Example usage:
-# Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
+# Use an ssh tunnel for requests previously tagged as
# User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0
and make sure
# resuming downloads continues to work.
+#
# This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
# without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
# or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
+#
# Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
# values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
-{+forward-override{forward .} \
+{+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
-hide-if-modified-since \
-overwrite-last-modified \
}
@@ -4669,7 +4415,7 @@ new action
# Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
-# but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
+# but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
{+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
example.org/.*\.js$
@@ -4722,14 +4468,14 @@ example.org/.*\.js$
-
+
Notes:
The below generic example section is actually part of default.action .
It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
- be left intact.
+ be left intact.
Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
@@ -4803,10 +4549,10 @@ new action
Keyword: block
, or any user defined value.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -4832,7 +4578,7 @@ new action
to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
- you should stick to a common language.
+ you should stick to a common language.
@@ -4889,10 +4635,10 @@ new action
Keyword: block
, or any user defined value.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -4961,7 +4707,7 @@ new action
Effect:
- Deletes the If-Modified-Since:
HTTP client header or modifies its value.
+ Deletes the If-Modified-Since:
HTTP client header or modifies its value.
@@ -4979,10 +4725,10 @@ new action
Keyword: block
, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5070,12 +4816,12 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
- The keyword block
will completely remove the header
+ The keyword block
will completely remove the header
(not to be confused with the block
action).
@@ -5156,7 +4902,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5185,12 +4931,12 @@ new action
will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
-
+
hide-referer is an alternate spelling of
hide-referrer and the two can be can be freely
substituted with each other. (referrer
is the
correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
- requires it to be spelled as referer
.)
+ requires it to be spelled as referer
.)
@@ -5246,16 +4992,16 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
-
+
This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
way, is NOT the right thing to do: good web sites
- work browser-independently).
+ work browser-independently).
@@ -5264,17 +5010,14 @@ new action
not recommended . In single-user, single-browser
setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
- OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
- sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
- reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
- let Mozilla enter, yet forging to a
- Netscape 6.1 user-agent works just fine.
- (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
+ OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
+ sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
+ reason in some cases).
- More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
+ More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
http://www.user-agents.org/
- and
+ and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent .
@@ -5330,7 +5073,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5373,18 +5116,16 @@ new action
+
-
-prevent-compression
+
+limit-cookie-lifetime
Typical use:
-
- Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
- passed through filter s.
-
+ Limit the lifetime of HTTP cookies to a couple of minutes or hours.
@@ -5392,7 +5133,7 @@ new action
Effect:
- Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
+ Overwrites the expires field in Set-Cookie server headers if it's above the specified limit.
@@ -5401,7 +5142,7 @@ new action
Type:
- Boolean.
+ Parameterized.
@@ -5409,81 +5150,171 @@ new action
Parameter:
- N/A
+ The lifetime limit in minutes, or 0.
-
+
Notes:
- More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
- is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the filter and
- deanimate-gifs
- actions need access to the uncompressed data.
+ This action reduces the lifetime of HTTP cookies coming from the
+ server to the specified number of minutes, starting from the time
+ the cookie passes Privoxy.
- When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
- filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
- If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
- support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
+ Cookies with a lifetime below the limit are not modified.
+ The lifetime of session cookies is set to the specified limit.
- Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
- for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
- unusual.
+ The effect of this action depends on the server.
- Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
- enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
- predefined action settings.
+ In case of servers which refresh their cookies with each response
+ (or at least frequently), the lifetime limit set by this action
+ is updated as well.
+ Thus, a session associated with the cookie continues to work with
+ this action enabled, as long as a new request is made before the
+ last limit set is reached.
- Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
- documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
- some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
- prevent-compression per default, you might want to add
- exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
+ However, some servers send their cookies once, with a lifetime of several
+ years (the year 2037 is a popular choice), and do not refresh them
+ until a certain event in the future, for example the user logging out.
+ In this case this action may limit the absolute lifetime of the session,
+ even if requests are made frequently.
+
+
+ If the parameter is 0
, this action behaves like
+ session-cookies-only .
- Example usage (sections):
+ Example usages:
-
-
-# Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
-#
-{ +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
-# Match only these sites
- .google.
- sourceforge.net
- sf.net
-
-# Or instead, we could set a universal default:
-#
-{ +prevent-compression }
- / # Match all sites
-
-# Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
-#
-{ -prevent-compression }
-.compusa.com/
+
+ +limit-cookie-lifetime{60}
+
-
-
-
-overwrite-last-modified
-
+
+ Boolean.
+
+
+
+
+ Parameter:
+
+
+ N/A
+
+
+
+
+
+ Notes:
+
+
+ More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
+ is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the filter and
+ deanimate-gifs
+ actions need access to the uncompressed data.
+
+
+ When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
+ filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
+ If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
+ support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
+
+
+ Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
+ for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
+ unusual.
+
+
+ Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
+ enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
+ predefined action settings.
+
+
+ Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
+ documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
+ some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
+ prevent-compression per default, you might want to add
+ exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Example usage (sections):
+
+
+
+# Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
+#
+{ +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
+# Match only these sites
+ .google.
+ sourceforge.net
+ sf.net
+
+# Or instead, we could set a universal default:
+#
+{ +prevent-compression }
+ / # Match all sites
+
+# Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
+#
+{ -prevent-compression }
+.compusa.com/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+overwrite-last-modified
+
@@ -5498,7 +5329,7 @@ new action
Effect:
- Deletes the Last-Modified:
HTTP server header or modifies its value.
+ Deletes the Last-Modified:
HTTP server header or modifies its value.
@@ -5517,10 +5348,10 @@ new action
One of the keywords: block
, reset-to-request-time
and randomize
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5536,7 +5367,7 @@ new action
between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
could send each document with a different Last-Modified:
header to track visits without using cookies. Randomize
- makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
+ makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
reset-to-request-time
overwrites the value of the
@@ -5552,7 +5383,7 @@ new action
of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
hided-if-modified-since ,
- just to be sure.
+ just to be sure.
It is also recommended to use this action together with
@@ -5619,7 +5450,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5630,9 +5461,19 @@ new action
single pcrs command to the original URL.
- This action will be ignored if you use it together with
- block .
- It can be combined with
+ The syntax for pcrs commands is documented in the
+ filter file section.
+
+
+ Requests can't be blocked and redirected at the same time,
+ applying this action together with
+ block
+ is a configuration error. Currently the request is blocked
+ and an error message logged, the behavior may change in the
+ future and result in Privoxy rejecting the action file.
+
+
+ This action can be combined with
fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}
to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
@@ -5657,8 +5498,8 @@ new action
example.com/stylesheet\.css
# Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
-# (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
-{ +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
+# (relies on the browser to accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
+{ +redirect{https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
a
# Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
@@ -5675,6 +5516,19 @@ undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
{+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
+# Redirect http://example.com/&bla=fasel&toChange=foo (and any other value but "bar")
+# to http://example.com/&bla=fasel&toChange=bar
+#
+# The URL pattern makes sure that the following request isn't redirected again.
+{+redirect{s@toChange=[^&]+@toChange=bar@}}
+example.com/.*toChange=(?!bar)
+
+# Add a shortcut to look up illumos bugs
+{+redirect{s@^http://i([0-9]+)/.*@https://www.illumos.org/issues/$1@}}
+# Redirected URL = http://i4974/
+# Redirect Destination = https://www.illumos.org/issues/4974
+i[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]*/
+
# Redirect remote requests for this manual
# to the local version delivered by Privoxy
{+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
@@ -5715,7 +5569,7 @@ www.privoxy.org/user-manual/
Type:
- Parameterized.
+ Multi-value.
@@ -5728,7 +5582,7 @@ www.privoxy.org/user-manual/
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5798,7 +5652,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
Type:
- Parameterized.
+ Multi-value.
@@ -5811,7 +5665,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5843,6 +5697,14 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
# Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
{+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
/
+
+# If the response has a tag starting with 'image/' enable an external
+# filter that only applies to images.
+#
+# Note that the filter is not available by default, it's just a
+# silly example .
+{+external-filter{rotate-image} +force-text-mode}
+TAG:^image/
@@ -5862,7 +5724,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
Allow only temporary session
cookies (for the current
- browser session only ).
+ browser session only ).
@@ -5894,12 +5756,12 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
-
+
Notes:
- This is less strict than crunch-incoming-cookies /
+ This is less strict than crunch-incoming-cookies /
crunch-outgoing-cookies and allows you to browse
websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
@@ -5907,7 +5769,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
session-cookies-only and will forget about them between sessions.
This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
- that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
+ that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
sites, and is the recommended setting.
@@ -5926,9 +5788,9 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
These would have to be removed manually.
- Privoxy also uses
- the content-cookies filter
- to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
+ Privoxy also uses
+ the content-cookies filter
+ to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
session-cookies-only .
@@ -6002,7 +5864,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
target-url
to
send a redirect to target-url . You can redirect
- to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via file:///
URL.
+ to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via file:///
URL.
(But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
@@ -6061,12 +5923,12 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
-
+
Summary
Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
- misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
- a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
+ misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
+ a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
and fast rules for all sites. See the Appendix for a brief example on troubleshooting
@@ -6084,7 +5946,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
=
,
- {
and }
, but we strongly
+ {
and }
, but we strongly
recommend that you only use a
to z
,
0
to 9
, +
, and -
.
Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
@@ -6151,7 +6013,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
- ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
+ ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
up for the /
pattern):
@@ -6169,7 +6031,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
# Shopping sites:
# Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
- #
+ #
{shop}
.quietpc.com
.worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
@@ -6183,8 +6045,8 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
- Aliases like shop
and fragile
are typically used for
- problem
sites that require more than one action to be disabled
+ Aliases like shop
and fragile
are typically used for
+ problem
sites that require more than one action to be disabled
in order to function properly.
@@ -6204,7 +6066,7 @@ hal stop here
and user.action file and see how all these pieces come together:
-
+
match-all.action
Remember all actions are disabled when matching starts ,
@@ -6229,7 +6091,7 @@ hal stop here
preceding the action name enables the action, a -
disables!).
Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
multiple lines with line continuation.
-
+
@@ -6247,7 +6109,7 @@ hal stop here
-
+
default.action
@@ -6308,7 +6170,7 @@ for-privoxy-version=3.0.11
The first of our specialized sections is concerned with fragile
sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
- make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
+ make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will use
our pre-defined fragile alias instead of stating the list
of actions explicitly:
@@ -6332,13 +6194,13 @@ mail.google.com
require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
-
+
# Shopping sites:
#
{ shop }
-.quietpc.com
+.quietpc.com
.worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
.jungle.com
.scan.co.uk
@@ -6407,7 +6269,7 @@ edit.*.yahoo.com
# Known ad generators:
#
{ +block-as-image }
-ar.atwola.com
+ar.atwola.com
.ad.doubleclick.net
.ad.*.doubleclick.net
.a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
@@ -6442,7 +6304,7 @@ bs*.gsanet.com
{ +block{Banner ads.} }
# Generic patterns:
-#
+#
ad*.
.*ads.
banner?.
@@ -6458,12 +6320,12 @@ count*.
It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
servers ads.company .com, or call the directory
- in which the banners are stored simply banners
. So the above
+ in which the banners are stored literally banners
. So the above
generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
- to block. The pattern .*ads. e.g. catches
+ to block. The pattern .*ads. e.g. catches
nasty-ads .nasty-corp.com
as intended,
but also downloads .sourcefroge.net
or
ads l.some-provider.net.
So here come some
@@ -6490,7 +6352,7 @@ count*.
##########################################################################
# By domain:
-#
+#
{ - block }
adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
@@ -6536,17 +6398,17 @@ wiki.
-user.action
+user.action
So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
- which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
+ which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
- be placed in user.action , which is parsed after all other
+ be placed in user.action , which is parsed after all other
actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
- defined actions. user.action is also a
+ defined actions. user.action is also a
safe place for your personal settings, since
default.action is actively maintained by the
Privoxy developers and you'll probably want
@@ -6555,7 +6417,7 @@ wiki.
So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
- user.action :
+ user.action :
@@ -6578,8 +6440,8 @@ wiki.
# (Re-)define aliases for this file:
#
{{alias}}
-#
-# These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
+#
+# These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
# be self explanatory.
#
+crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
@@ -6610,7 +6472,7 @@ handle-as-text = - filter +- block action. Say you've
seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
You have right-clicked the image, selected copy image location
- and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
+ and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
{ +block{} } section. Note that { +handle-as-image
} need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
.gif will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
@@ -6673,7 +6535,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
makes it impossible for Privoxy to guess
- the file type just by looking at the URL.
+ the file type just by looking at the URL.
You can use the +block-as-image alias defined above for
these cases.
Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
@@ -6698,7 +6560,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
-- whoa! -- it worked. The fragile
aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
good for testing purposes to see if it is Privoxy
- that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
+ that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
@@ -6743,19 +6605,19 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
{ allow-ads }
.sourceforge.net
.slashdot.org
- .osdn.net
+ .osdn.net
- Note that allow-ads has been aliased to
- - block ,
- - filter{banners-by-size} , and
+ Note that allow-ads has been aliased to
+ - block ,
+ - filter{banners-by-size} , and
- filter{banners-by-link} above.
Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type
- application/x-sh which typically would open a download type
+ application/x-sh which typically would open a download type
dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
it should I choose to.
@@ -6763,7 +6625,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
{ handle-as-text }
- /.*\.sh$
+ /.*\.sh$
@@ -6798,12 +6660,12 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
On-the-fly text substitutions need
- to be defined in a filter file
. Once defined, they
+ to be defined in a filter file
. Once defined, they
can then be invoked as an action
.
- &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
+ &my-app; supports three different pcrs-based filter actions:
filter to
rewrite the content that is send to the client,
client-header-filter
@@ -6823,6 +6685,13 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
applying actions through sections with tag-patterns.
+
+ Finally &my-app; supports the
+ external-filter action
+ to enable external filters
+ written in proper programming languages.
+
+
Multiple filter files can be defined through the
Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to roll
- your own
filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
+ your own filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
and, of course, regular expressions.
@@ -6862,7 +6731,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
keywords FILTER: ,
CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER: or SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:
- followed by the filter's name , and a short (one line)
+ followed by the filter's name , and a short (one line)
description of what it does. Below that line
come the jobs , i.e. lines that define the actual
text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
@@ -6877,7 +6746,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
+ filter{name }
in any actions file.
-
+
Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
type, the filter name and the filter description.
@@ -6895,19 +6764,47 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
in a syntax that imitates Perl 's
s/// operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
- PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
- notably, the non-standard option letter U is supported,
- which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
+ PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour.
+
+
+
+ Most notably, the non-standard option letter U is supported,
+ which turns the default to ungreedy matching (add ? to
+ quantifiers to turn them greedy again).
+
+
+
+ The non-standard option letter D (dynamic) allows
+ to use the variables $host, $origin (the IP address the request came from),
+ $path, $url and $listen-address (the address on which Privoxy accepted the
+ client request. Example: 127.0.0.1:8118).
+ They will be replaced with the value they refer to before the filter
+ is executed.
+
+
+
+ Note that '$' is a bad choice for a delimiter in a dynamic filter as you
+ might end up with unintended variables if you use a variable name
+ directly after the delimiter. Variables will be resolved without
+ escaping anything, therefore you also have to be careful not to chose
+ delimiters that appear in the replacement text. For example '<' should
+ be save, while '?' will sooner or later cause conflicts with $url.
- If you are new to
+ The non-standard option letter T (trivial) prevents
+ parsing for backreferences in the substitute. Use it if you want to include
+ text like '$&' in your substitute without quoting.
+
+
+
+ If you are new to
Regular
Expressions
, you might want to take a look at
the Appendix on regular expressions, and
see the Perl
manual for
- the
+ the
s/// operator's syntax and Perl-style regular
expressions in general.
@@ -6917,7 +6814,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
-Filter File Tutorial
+Filter File Tutorial
Now, let's complete our foo
content filter. We have already defined
the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
@@ -7022,7 +6919,7 @@ s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|U
Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
lets look at the substitute: $1"Not Your Business!"$2 is
- easy to read: The text remembered as $1 , followed by
+ easy to read: The text remembered as $1 , followed by
"Not Your Business!" (including
the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as $2 .
This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
@@ -7089,7 +6986,7 @@ s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU
Note that the i option makes the pattern matching
case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use [^>]*
- instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the
+ instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the
<body> tag if it doesn't contain OnUnload
, but the page's
content does.
@@ -7109,7 +7006,7 @@ s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig
Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead)
- in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
+ in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
.com
appears directly following microsoft
in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
still replacing the word everywhere else.
@@ -7135,7 +7032,7 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \
The x option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
- e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
+ e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
@@ -7147,11 +7044,11 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \
The Pre-defined Filters
-
@@ -7191,12 +7088,12 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
- Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
+ Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
rely heavily on JavaScript.
-
+
js-events
@@ -7220,7 +7117,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
- The BLINK and MARQUEE tags
+ The BLINK and MARQUEE tags
are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
@@ -7241,19 +7138,19 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
- cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
+ cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
- use the cookie crunch actions.
+ use the cookie crunch actions.
- refresh tags
+ refresh-tags
- Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
- that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
+ Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
+ that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
annoying.
@@ -7264,9 +7161,9 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
unsolicited-popups
- This filter attempts to prevent only unsolicited
pop-up
- windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
- has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
+ This filter attempts to prevent only unsolicited
pop-up
+ windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
+ has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
as an improvement over earlier such filters.
@@ -7277,7 +7174,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
- reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
+ reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
in order to function normally. Use with caution.
@@ -7310,7 +7207,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
banners-by-size
- This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
+ This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
@@ -7319,7 +7216,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
- Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
+ Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
block rules should catch 95+% of all ads without this filter enabled.
@@ -7329,7 +7226,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
banners-by-link
- This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
+ This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
@@ -7340,7 +7237,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
webbugs
- Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
+ Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
@@ -7359,7 +7256,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
- multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
+ multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
@@ -7403,20 +7300,20 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
- HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
+ HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
- This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
- It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
+ This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
+ It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
- sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
+ sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
the fly.
+-->
@@ -7426,7 +7323,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
- out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
+ out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
@@ -7502,12 +7399,12 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
-
+
yahoo
- Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
+ Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
a width limitation as well.
@@ -7517,7 +7414,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
msn
- Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
+ Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
@@ -7546,7 +7443,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
-
+
html-to-xml
@@ -7614,6 +7511,79 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
+
+
+External filter syntax
+
+ External filters are scripts or programs that can modify the content in
+ case common filters
+ aren't powerful enough.
+
+
+ External filters can be written in any language the platform &my-app; runs
+ on supports.
+
+
+ They are controlled with the
+ external-filter action
+ and have to be defined in the filterfile
+ first.
+
+
+ The header looks like any other filter, but instead of pcrs jobs, external
+ filters contain a single job which can be a program or a shell script (which
+ may call other scripts or programs).
+
+
+ External filters read the content from STDIN and write the rewritten
+ content to STDOUT.
+ The environment variables PRIVOXY_URL, PRIVOXY_PATH, PRIVOXY_HOST,
+ PRIVOXY_ORIGIN, PRIVOXY_LISTEN_ADDRESS can be used to get some details
+ about the client request.
+
+
+ &my-app; will temporary store the content to filter in the
+ temporary-directory .
+
+
+
+EXTERNAL-FILTER: cat Pointless example filter that doesn't actually modify the content
+/bin/cat
+
+# Incorrect reimplementation of the filter above in POSIX shell.
+#
+# Note that it's a single job that spans multiple lines, the line
+# breaks are not passed to the shell, thus the semicolons are required.
+#
+# If the script isn't trivial, it is recommended to put it into an external file.
+#
+# In general, writing external filters entirely in POSIX shell is not
+# considered a good idea.
+EXTERNAL-FILTER: cat2 Pointless example filter that despite its name may actually modify the content
+while read line; \
+do \
+ echo "$line"; \
+done
+
+EXTERNAL-FILTER: rotate-image Rotate an image by 180 degree. Test filter with limited value.
+/usr/local/bin/convert - -rotate 180 -
+
+EXTERNAL-FILTER: citation-needed Adds a "[citation needed]" tag to an image. The coordinates may need adjustment.
+/usr/local/bin/convert - -pointsize 16 -fill white -annotate +17+418 "[citation needed]" -
+
+
+
+
+
+ Currently external filters are executed with &my-app;'s privileges!
+ Only use external filters you understand and trust.
+
+
+
+ External filters are experimental and the syntax may change in the future.
+
+
+
@@ -7625,13 +7595,13 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
Privoxy's Template Files
- All Privoxy built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
+ All Privoxy built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
404 - No Such Domain
error page , the BLOCKED
page
and all pages of its web-based
- user interface , are generated from templates .
+ user interface, are generated from templates .
(Privoxy must be running for the above links to work as
intended.)
@@ -7648,10 +7618,10 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
or exports), which Privoxy fills at run time. It
is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
to customize them. (Not recommended for the casual
- user ). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
+ user). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
the config setting templdir
to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
- during upgrades.
+ during upgrades.
Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
@@ -7734,11 +7704,20 @@ Requests
©right;
+
+ Privoxy is free software; you can
+ redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
+ GNU General Public License , version 2,
+ as published by the Free Software Foundation and included in
+ the next section.
+
+
-License
-
- &license;
-
+License
+
+
+
+
@@ -7783,7 +7762,7 @@ Requests
expressions in its actions
files and filter file,
through the PCRE and
-
@@ -7810,7 +7789,7 @@ Requests
To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
- characters when listing files with the dir command in DOS.
+ characters when listing files with the dir command in DOS.
*.* matches all filenames. The special
character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
more specific and use ? to match just individual
@@ -7821,7 +7800,7 @@ Requests
Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
- powerful. There are many more special characters
and ways of
+ powerful. There are many more special characters
and ways of
building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
and then some examples:
@@ -7857,10 +7836,10 @@ Requests
\ - The escape
character denotes that
- the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
+ the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
special characters (e.g. .
) needs to be taken literally and
- not as a special meta-character. Example: example\.com
, makes
- sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
+ not as a special meta-character. Example: example\.com
, makes
+ sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
meta-character meaning of any single character).
@@ -7869,7 +7848,7 @@ Requests
[ ] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, [0-9]
- matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
+ matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
this with +
to match any digit one of more times: [0-9]+
.
@@ -7886,14 +7865,14 @@ Requests
| - The bar
character works like an
or
conditional statement. A match is successful if the
sub-expression on either side of |
matches. As an example:
- /(this|that) example/
uses grouping and the bar character
+ /(this|that) example/
uses grouping and the bar character
and would match either this example
or that
example
, and nothing else.
- These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
+ These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
Privoxy , and is a long way from a definitive
list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
be more illuminating:
@@ -7901,12 +7880,12 @@ Requests
/.*/banners/.* - A simple example
- that uses the common combination of .
and *
to
+ that uses the common combination of .
and *
to
denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
- So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
+ So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
(.*
) another literal forward slash, the string
banners
, another forward slash, and lastly another
- .*
. We are building
+ .*
. We are building
a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
directory named banners
in it. The .*
matches
any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
@@ -7922,14 +7901,14 @@ Requests
- /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/ -
+ /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/ -
We have several literal forward slashes again (/
), so we are
- building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
+ building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
.*
, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
it matches our expression. The only true literal that must
match our pattern is adv , together with
the forward slashes. What comes after the adv
string is the
- interesting part.
+ interesting part.
@@ -7939,29 +7918,29 @@ Requests
((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))
is optional, as are the
individual sub-expressions: (er)
,
(ing|ements?)
, and the s
. The |
- means or
. We have two of those. For instance,
- (ing|ements?)
, can expand to match either ing
+ means or
. We have two of those. For instance,
+ (ing|ements?)
, can expand to match either ing
OR ements?
. What is being done here, is an
- attempt at matching as many variations of advertisement
, and
+ attempt at matching as many variations of advertisement
, and
similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just adv
,
or advert
, or adverts
, or
advertising
, or advertisement
, or
- advertisements
. You get the idea. But it would not match
+ advertisements
. You get the idea. But it would not match
advertizements
(with a z
). We could fix that by
- changing our regular expression to:
+ changing our regular expression to:
/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/
, which would then match
either spelling.
- /.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g) - Again
- another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
+ /.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g) - Again
+ another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
[ ]
can be matched. This is using 0-9
as a
shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
saying 0123456789
. So any digit matches. The +
- means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
- expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
- one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: (gif|jpe?g)
.
+ means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
+ expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
+ one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: (gif|jpe?g)
.
This includes a |
, so this needs to match the expression on
either side of that bar character also. A simple gif
on one side, and the other
side will in turn match either jpeg
or jpg
,
@@ -7991,7 +7970,7 @@ Requests
- More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
+ More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html
@@ -8006,26 +7985,26 @@ Requests
-
+
Privoxy's Internal Pages
- Since Privoxy proxies each requested
- web page, it is easy for Privoxy to
+ Since Privoxy proxies each requested
+ web page, it is easy for Privoxy to
trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
- Privoxy , and see how it is
- configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
+ Privoxy , and see how it is
+ configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
rules and other configuration options, and even turn
- Privoxy's filtering off, all with
+ Privoxy's filtering off, all with
a web browser.
- The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
+ The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
to Privoxy . Of course,
- Privoxy must be running to access these. If
- not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
+ Privoxy must be running to access these. If
+ not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
necessary either.
@@ -8033,11 +8012,11 @@ Requests
-
- Privoxy main page:
+
+ Privoxy main page:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/
@@ -8049,216 +8028,138 @@ Requests
-
- Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
+
+ Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
editing of actions files:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
-
+
-
+
Show the source code version numbers:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-version
-
+
-
+
Show the browser's request headers:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-request
-
+
-
+
Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
-
+
-
- Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
+
+ Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
config file. When toggled off
, Privoxy
continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
place:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/toggle
- Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
+ Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable
-
+
http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable
-
+
-
- These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
+
-
-
-Bookmarklets
-
- Below are some bookmarklets
to allow you to easily access a
- mini
version of some of Privoxy's
- special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
- equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
- JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
- clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
-
+
+
+Chain of Events
- To save them, right-click the link and choose Add to Favorites
- (IE) or Add Bookmark
(Netscape). You will get a warning that
- the bookmark may not be safe
- just click OK. Then you can run the
- Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
- you can put them on the Links
bar (IE) or the Personal
- Toolbar
(Netscape), and run them with a single click.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Enable
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Disable
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy- View Status
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Why?
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
- www.bookmarklets.com . They
- have more information about bookmarklets.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Chain of Events
-
- Let's take a quick look at how some of Privoxy's
- core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
- page is requested by your browser:
+ Let's take a quick look at how some of Privoxy's
+ core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
+ page is requested by your browser:
- First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
- the request to Privoxy , which will in turn,
- relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
- tests:
+ First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
+ the request to Privoxy , which will in turn,
+ relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
+ tests:
-
+
- Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI
+ Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI
pages (e.g http://p.p/ ) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
-
+
- Next, Privoxy checks to see if the URL
+ Next, Privoxy checks to see if the URL
matches any +block
patterns. If
so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
- +handle-as-image
- and
+ +handle-as-image
+ and
+handle-as-empty-document
- are then checked, and if there is no match, an
+ are then checked, and if there is no match, an
HTML BLOCKED
page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
+set-image-blocker
(blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
-
+
Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
trust file, then that is done.
-
+
If the URL pattern matches the +fast-redirects
action,
it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
-
+
Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
@@ -8267,24 +8168,24 @@ Requests
etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
their parameters.
-
+
Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
page).
-
+
First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
- filtered as determined by the
+ filtered as determined by the
+crunch-incoming-cookies
,
+session-cookies-only
,
and +downgrade-http-version
actions.
-
+
If any +filter
action
@@ -8297,35 +8198,35 @@ Requests
they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
- Privoxy back to your browser.
+ Privoxy back to your browser.
If neither a +filter
action
or +deanimate-gifs
- matches, then Privoxy passes the raw data through
+ matches, then Privoxy passes the raw data through
to the client browser as it becomes available.
-
+
- As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
+ As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
separate request (this is easily viewable in Privoxy's
logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
- complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
- secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
+ complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
+ secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
differing set of actions is triggered.
-
-
+
+
NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
- request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
+ request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
Privoxy's core features only.
@@ -8337,7 +8238,7 @@ Requests
Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action
- The way Privoxy applies
+ The way Privoxy applies
actions and filters
to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
@@ -8346,16 +8247,15 @@ Requests
is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
regular expressions whose consequences are not
- always so obvious.
+ always so obvious.
- One quick test to see if Privoxy is causing a problem
- or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
- step. See the Bookmarklets section on a quick
- and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
- logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
- enabled via config file settings, and may need to be
+ One quick test to see if Privoxy is causing a problem
+ or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
+ step (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
+ logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
+ enabled via config file settings, and may need to be
turned on
.)
@@ -8367,7 +8267,7 @@ Requests
- Privoxy also provides the
+ Privoxy also provides the
http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
page that can show us very specifically how actions
are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
@@ -8375,7 +8275,7 @@ Requests
First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
- Privoxy will tell us
+ Privoxy will tell us
how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
help with filtering effects (i.e. the +filter
action) from
@@ -8391,8 +8291,8 @@ Requests
- Let's try an example, google.com ,
- and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
+ Let's try an example, google.com ,
+ and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
configuration may vary):
@@ -8416,7 +8316,7 @@ Requests
+session-cookies-only
+set-image-blocker {pattern}
/
-
+
{ -session-cookies-only }
.google.com
@@ -8424,17 +8324,17 @@ Requests
.google.com
In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
-(no matches in this file)
+(no matches in this file)
- This is telling us how we have defined our
+ This is telling us how we have defined our
actions
, and
- which ones match for our test case, google.com
.
+ which ones match for our test case, google.com
.
Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
the + sign denotes on
. -
- denotes off
. So some are on
here, but many
+ denotes off
. So some are on
here, but many
are off
. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
end result, depending on our configuration directives.
@@ -8462,7 +8362,7 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ].google.com. This will match any hosts and
sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
- www.google.com
or mail.google.com
. But it would not
+ www.google.com
or mail.google.com
. But it would not
match www.google.de
! So, apparently, we have these two actions
defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
part of our default.action file, and
@@ -8472,1281 +8372,356 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
Then, for our user.action file, we again have no hits.
So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
- configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
+ configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
previously processed files, such as default.action .
user.action typically has the last word. This is the
best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
-
-
-
- And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
- Privoxy is applying all its actions
- to google.com
:
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Final results:
-
- -add-header
- -block
- +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
- -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
- -content-type-overwrite
- -crunch-client-header
- -crunch-if-none-match
- -crunch-incoming-cookies
- -crunch-outgoing-cookies
- -crunch-server-header
- +deanimate-gifs {last}
- -downgrade-http-version
- -fast-redirects
- -filter {js-events}
- -filter {content-cookies}
- -filter {all-popups}
- -filter {banners-by-link}
- -filter {tiny-textforms}
- -filter {frameset-borders}
- -filter {demoronizer}
- -filter {shockwave-flash}
- -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
- -filter {fun}
- -filter {crude-parental}
- -filter {site-specifics}
- -filter {js-annoyances}
- -filter {html-annoyances}
- +filter {refresh-tags}
- -filter {unsolicited-popups}
- +filter {img-reorder}
- +filter {banners-by-size}
- +filter {webbugs}
- +filter {jumping-windows}
- +filter {ie-exploits}
- -filter {google}
- -filter {yahoo}
- -filter {msn}
- -filter {blogspot}
- -filter {no-ping}
- -force-text-mode
- -handle-as-empty-document
- -handle-as-image
- -hide-accept-language
- -hide-content-disposition
- +hide-from-header {block}
- -hide-if-modified-since
- +hide-referrer {forge}
- -hide-user-agent
- -limit-connect
- -overwrite-last-modified
- -prevent-compression
- -redirect
- -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
- -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
- -session-cookies-only
- +set-image-blocker {pattern}
-
-
-
- Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
- fast-redirects
and session-cookies-only
,
- which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
- and thus show in the Final Results
.
-
-
-
- Now another example, ad.doubleclick.net
:
-
-
-
-
-
- { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
- ad*.
-
- { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
- .ad.
-
- { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
- .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
-
-
-
-
- We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
- matched three different times. Two +block{}
sections,
- and a +block{} +handle-as-image
,
- which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
- +block-as-image
. (Aliases
are defined in
- the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
- than one action.)
-
-
-
- Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
- image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
- would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
- though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
- URL to be invisible, it should be defined as ad.doubleclick.net
- is done here -- as both a +block{}
- and an
- +handle-as-image
.
- The custom alias +block-as-image
just
- simplifies the process and make it more readable.
-
-
-
- One last example. Let's try http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/
.
- This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
-
-
-
-
-
- Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
-
- In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
-
- {-add-header
- -block
- +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
- -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
- -content-type-overwrite
- -crunch-client-header
- -crunch-if-none-match
- -crunch-incoming-cookies
- -crunch-outgoing-cookies
- -crunch-server-header
- +deanimate-gifs
- -downgrade-http-version
- +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
- -filter {js-events}
- -filter {content-cookies}
- -filter {all-popups}
- -filter {banners-by-link}
- -filter {tiny-textforms}
- -filter {frameset-borders}
- -filter {demoronizer}
- -filter {shockwave-flash}
- -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
- -filter {fun}
- -filter {crude-parental}
- -filter {site-specifics}
- -filter {js-annoyances}
- -filter {html-annoyances}
- +filter {refresh-tags}
- -filter {unsolicited-popups}
- +filter {img-reorder}
- +filter {banners-by-size}
- +filter {webbugs}
- +filter {jumping-windows}
- +filter {ie-exploits}
- -filter {google}
- -filter {yahoo}
- -filter {msn}
- -filter {blogspot}
- -filter {no-ping}
- -force-text-mode
- -handle-as-empty-document
- -handle-as-image
- -hide-accept-language
- -hide-content-disposition
- +hide-from-header{block}
- +hide-referer{forge}
- -hide-user-agent
- -overwrite-last-modified
- +prevent-compression
- -redirect
- -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
- -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
- +session-cookies-only
- +set-image-blocker{blank} }
- /
-
- { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
- /ads
-
-
-
-
- Ooops, the /adsl/
is matching /ads
in our
- configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
- blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
- the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
- to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
- We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
- user.action file) that explicitly
- un blocks (
- {-block}
) paths with
- adsl
in them (remember, last match in the configuration
- wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
-
-
-
-
-
- { -block }
- /adsl
-
-
-
-
- Now the page displays ;-)
- Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
- your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
- using Shift+Reload .
-
-
-
- But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
- we did with:
-
-
-
-
-
- { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
- /ads
-
-
-
-
- That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
- was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
- rules in the first section of default.action is causing
- the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
- error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
- +filter
actions.
- These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
- Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
- +filter
:
-
-
-
-
-
- { shop }
- .quietpc.com
- .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
- .jungle.com
- .scan.co.uk
- .forbes.com
-
-
-
-
- { shop }
is an alias
that expands to
- { -filter -session-cookies-only }
.
- Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
-
-
-
-
-
-
- { -filter }
- # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
- .forbes.com
- developer.ibm.com
- localhost
-
-
-
-
- This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
- put in user.action , for local site
- exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
- the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
- automatically in the scope of the action.
-
-
-
- Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
-+filter{banners-by-size}
- rule, which assumes
- that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
- most of the time since these tend to be standardized).
-
-
-
- { fragile }
is an alias that disables most
- actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
- last resort for problem sites.
-
-
-
-
- { fragile }
- # Handle with care: easy to break
- mail.google.
- mybank.example.com
-
-
-
-
- Remember to flush caches! Note that the
- mail.google reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
- .com
). This will effectively match any TLD with
- google in it, such as mail.google.de. ,
- just as an example.
-
-
- If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
- actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-