1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN"[
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
8 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
9 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
10 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "3.0.6">
12 <!entity p-status "stable">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
14 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
16 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
17 <!entity % p-supp-userman "INCLUDE"> <!-- Include all from supported.sgml -->
18 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
19 <!entity % p-newstuff "INCLUDE"> <!-- exclude stuff from devel versions -->
20 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
23 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/faq.sgml,v $
26 This file belongs into
27 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
29 $Id: faq.sgml,v 2.24 2006/11/14 01:57:46 hal9 Exp $
31 Copyright (C) 2001-2007 Privoxy Developers http://privoxy.org
34 Based partially on the Internet Junkbuster FAQ originally written by and
35 Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters Corporation.
36 http://www.junkbusters.com/
38 <Qandaset defaultlabel='qanda'>
53 ========================================================================
54 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
57 Please we keep the info in this file as version independent as possible
58 so we only have to maintain one FAQ. Where significant changes are
59 made to Privoxy configuration, please note the change in such a way that
60 it makes sense to both users of older and newer versions.
61 ========================================================================
67 <article id="index" class="faq">
69 <title>Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions</title>
73 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
74 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
75 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2006 by
76 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
80 <pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 2.24 2006/11/14 01:57:46 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
84 Note: this should generate a separate page, and a live link to it.
85 But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave commented
86 unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the copyright
87 statement will be in copyright.smgl.
91 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
93 text goes here ........
103 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
112 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
113 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
114 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
119 This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
120 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
121 It is not a substitute for the
122 <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
124 This works, at least in some situtations:
125 Test: <ulink url="privoxy-user-manual.pdf"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
129 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
130 <para>What is Privoxy?</para> &p-intro;
131 <!-- end boilerplate -->
134 Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents
135 the state at the release of version &p-version;.
136 You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink
137 url="http://www.privoxy.org/faq/">http://www.privoxy.org/faq/</ulink>.
138 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> if you want to
139 contact the developers.
143 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
149 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
151 <sect1 id="general"><title>General Information</title>
152 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="who_uses"><title>Who should use Privoxy?</title>
154 Anyone that is interested in security, privacy, or in
155 finer-grained control over their web and Internet experience.
156 Everyone is encouraged to try &my-app;.
160 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="bestchoice"><title>Is Privoxy the best choice for
163 &my-app; is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more
164 control and security. Those that have the ability to fine-tune their installation
165 will benefit the most. One of <application>Privoxy's</application>
166 strength's is that it is highly configurable giving you the ability to
167 completely personalize your installation. Being familiar with, or at least
168 having an interest in learning about <ulink
169 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http">HTTP</ulink> and other networking
170 protocols, <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html">HTML</ulink>,
171 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol">IP (Internet
172 Protocol)</ulink>, and
173 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
174 Expressions</quote></ulink>
175 will be a big plus and will help you get the most out of &my-app;.
176 A new installation just includes a very basic configuration. The user
177 should take this as a starting point only, and enhance it as he or she
178 sees fit. In fact, the user is encouraged, and expected to, fine-tune the
182 Much of <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration can be done
183 with a <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser">Web browser</ulink>.
184 But there are areas where configuration is done using a
185 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_editors">text editor</ulink>
186 to edit configuration files.
190 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
191 Privoxy work? </title>
193 A <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">web proxy</ulink>
194 is a service, based on a software such as
195 <application>Privoxy</application>, that clients (i.e. browsers) can use
196 instead of connecting directly to web servers on the Internet. The
197 clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects they need (web pages,
198 images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy has done so, it
199 hands the results back to the client. It is a <quote>go-between</quote>. See
200 the <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">Wikipedia proxy
201 definition</ulink> for more.
204 There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
205 efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies
206 to accommodate those needs.
209 <application>Privoxy</application> is a proxy that is primarily focused on privacy
210 protection, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from restrictions placed on his
211 activities. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
212 it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
213 browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
214 this, all of which are under your complete control via the various configuration
215 files and options. Being a proxy also makes it easier to share
216 configurations among multiple browsers and/or users.
220 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherstuff">
221 <title>Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?</title>
223 Yes, ad blocking is but one possible use. There are many, many ways &my-app;
224 can be used to sanitize and customize web browsing.
228 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of
229 <quote><citetitle>Junkbuster</citetitle></quote>?</title>
231 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
238 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
239 <title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why change the name from
240 Junkbuster at all?</title>
242 Though outdated, <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>
243 continues to offer their original version of the <application>Internet
244 Junkbuster</application>, so publishing our
245 <application> Junkbuster</application>-derived software under the same name
249 There are also potential legal complications from our use of the
250 <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a registered trademark of
251 <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>.
252 There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
253 <application>Privoxy</application> project itself, and they, in fact, still
254 share our ideals and goals.
257 The developers also believed that there are so many improvements over the original
258 code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
259 a name in their own right.
262 <application>Privoxy</application> is the
263 <quote><emphasis>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</emphasis></quote>. Also, its content
264 modification and junk suppression gives <emphasis>you</emphasis>, the user, more
265 control, more freedom, and allows you to browse your personal and
266 <quote><emphasis>private</emphasis> edition</quote> of the web.
270 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="differs"><title>How does Privoxy differ
271 from the old Junkbuster?</title>
273 <application>Privoxy</application> picks up where
274 <application>Junkbuster</application> left off. All the old features remain.
275 The new <application>Privoxy</application> still blocks ads and banners,
277 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>, and still
278 helps protect your privacy. But, these are all greatly enhanced, and many,
279 many new features have been added, all in the same vein.
282 The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
283 users will notice right off the bat if upgrading from
284 <application>Junkbuster</application> 2.0.x. The <quote>blocklist</quote>
285 <quote>cookielist</quote>, <quote>imagelist</quote> and much more has been
286 combined into the <quote>actions</quote> files, with a completely different
287 syntax. <![%p-newstuff;[ See the <ulink url="../user-manual/whatsnew.html">What's New</ulink>
288 page for the latest updates.]]>
291 <application>Privoxy</application>'s new features include:
294 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml: -->
300 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whatsanad">
301 <title id="knows">How does Privoxy know what is
302 an ad, and what is not?</title>
304 <application>Privoxy</application>'s approach to blocking ads is twofold:
307 First, there are certain patterns in the <emphasis>locations</emphasis> (URLs)
308 of banner images. This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many
309 web sites serve their banners from a directory called <quote>banners</quote>!)
310 and the host (blocking the big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net
311 already helps a lot). <application>Privoxy</application> takes advantage of this
312 fact by using <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL
313 patterns</ulink> to sort out and block the requests for things that sound
314 like they would be ads or banners.
317 Second, banners tend to come in certain <emphasis>sizes</emphasis>. But you
318 can't tell the size of an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you
319 do, it's too late to save bandwidth. Therefore, <application>Privoxy</application>
320 also inspects the HTML sources of web pages while they are loaded, and replaces
321 references to images with standard banner sizes by dummy references, so that
322 your browser doesn't request them anymore in the first place.
325 Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
326 and readily configurable.
330 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
331 <title id="mistakes">Can Privoxy make mistakes?
332 This does not sound very scientific.</title>
334 Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
335 rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
336 run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
337 cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
341 But this should not be a big concern since the
342 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is very flexible, and
343 includes tools to help identify these types of situations so they can be
344 addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation.
345 (<link linkend="badsite">See the Troubleshooting section below</link>.)
350 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
351 <title id="configornot">Will I have to configure Privoxy
352 before I can use it?</title>
354 No, not really. The default installation should give you a good starting
355 point, and block <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads and unwanted content. Many of
356 the more advanced features are off by default, and would require you to
360 You do have to set up your browser to use
361 <application>Privoxy</application> (see the <link
362 linkend="firststep">Installation section below</link>).
365 And you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives,
366 or ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you
367 would certainly benefit by customizing <application>Privoxy's</application>
368 configuration to more closely match your individual situation. And we would
369 encourage you to do this. This is where the real power of
370 <application>Privoxy</application> lies!
375 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lan">
376 <title>Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?</title>
378 Yes, &my-app; runs as a server already, and can easily be configured to
379 <quote>serve</quote> more than one client. See <link linkend="lanconfig">
380 How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN</link> below.
384 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browsers2"><title>My browser does the same things as
385 Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at all?</title>
387 Modern browsers do indeed have <emphasis>some</emphasis> of the same
388 functionality as <application>Privoxy</application>. Maybe this is
389 adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is much more
390 versatile and powerful, and can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
393 In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
394 have a LAN with multiple computers since &my-app; can run as a server
395 application. This way all the configuration is in one place, and you don't
396 have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers or
401 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whytrust"><title>Why should I trust Privoxy?</title>
403 The most important reason is because you have access to
404 <emphasis>everything</emphasis>, and you can control everything. You can
405 check every line of every configuration file yourself. You can check every
406 last bit of source code should you desire. And even if you can't read code,
407 there should be some comfort in knowing that thousands of other people can,
408 and do read it. You can build the software from scratch, if you want, so
409 that you know the executable is clean, and that it is
410 <emphasis>yours</emphasis>. In fact, we encourage this level of scrutiny. It
411 is one reason we use &my-app; ourselves.
415 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
416 warranty? Registration?</title>
418 <application>Privoxy</application> is licensed under the <ulink
419 url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</ulink>.
420 It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this
421 license. Please see the <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> section for more
422 information on the license and copyright. Or the <filename>LICENSE</filename> file
423 that should be included.
426 There is <emphasis>no warranty</emphasis> of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
427 That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
428 <application>Privoxy</application> really is <emphasis>free</emphasis>
434 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="spyware">
435 <title>Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?</title>
437 No. &my-app; cannot remove anything. It is not a removal tool. It is a
438 preventative. &my-app; can help prevent contact from sites that use such
439 tactics with appropriate configuration rules, and thus could conceivably
440 prevent contamination from such sites.
445 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherads">
446 <title>Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?</title>
448 &my-app; should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
451 But it is probably not necessary to use &my-app; in conjunction with other
452 ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results.
453 It would be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to
454 tweak its configuration to your liking.
458 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="jointeam"><title>I would like to help you, what can I do?</title>
460 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-work"><title>Would you like to participate?</title>
462 Well, we <emphasis>always</emphasis> need help. There is something for
463 everybody who wants to help us. We welcome new developers, packagers,
464 testers, documentation writers or really anyone with a desire to help in
465 any way. You <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> need to be a
466 <quote>programmer</quote>. There are many other tasks available. In fact,
467 the programmers often can't spend as much time programming because of some
468 of the other, more mundane things that need to be done, like checking the
469 Tracker feedback sections.
472 So first thing, <ulink
473 url="https://sourceforge.net/account/register.php">get an account on SourceForge.net</ulink>
474 and mail your id to the <ulink url="mailto:ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net">developers
475 mailing list</ulink>. Then, please read the <ulink
476 url="../developer-manual/index.html">Developer's Manual</ulink>, at least
477 the pertinent sections.
481 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-money"><title>Contribute!</title>
483 We, of course, welcome donations and could use money for domain registering,
484 buying software to test <application>Privoxy</application> with, and, of course,
485 for regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). If you enjoy the software and feel
486 like helping us with a donation, just <ulink
487 url="mailto: ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net">drop us a note</ulink>.
491 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-software"><title>Software</title>
493 If you are a vendor of a web-related software like a browser, web server
494 or proxy, and would like us to ensure that <application>Privoxy</application>
495 runs smoothly with your product, you might consider supplying us with a
496 copy or license. We can't, however, guarantee that we will fix all potential
497 compatibility issues as a result.
507 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
509 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
511 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichbrowsers">
512 <title>Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?</title>
514 Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
515 should be virtually all browsers, including
516 <application>Firefox</application>, <application>Internet
517 Explorer</application>, and <application>Opera</application> among others.
518 Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since
519 <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and talks
520 to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
525 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichos">
526 <title>Which operating systems are supported?</title>
528 Include supported.sgml here:
533 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="email-client">
534 <title>Can I use Privoxy with my email client?</title>
536 As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes,
537 any application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a
538 <quote>browser</quote> or not. Though this may not be the best approach for
539 dealing with some of the common abuses of HTML in email. See <link
540 linkend="outlook">How can I configure <application>Privoxy</application>
541 with <application>Outlook Express</application>?</link> below for more on
545 Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
546 related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
547 recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
548 text for these reasons.
552 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
553 Privoxy over Junkbuster?</title>
555 We recommend you un-install <application>Junkbuster</application>
556 first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
557 save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
558 files and syntax have substantially changed, so you will need to manually
559 port your old patterns. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note
560 to upgraders</ulink> and <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">installation
561 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink>
565 Note: Some installers may automatically un-install
566 <application>Junkbuster</application>, if present!
571 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="firststep">
572 <title>I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
573 special I have to do now?</title>
576 All browsers must be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
577 as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
578 in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. See
579 <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">the User Manual for more
580 details</ulink>. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache to get rid of any
581 cached junk items, and remove any stored
582 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>.
589 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of Privoxy?</title>
591 If you set up the <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
592 the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
593 networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>
594 (sometimes referred to as <quote>localhost</quote>,
595 which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
596 to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you have <application>Privoxy</application>
597 to run on a different port with the <ulink
598 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink> config option).
601 When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
602 the word <quote>localhost</quote> or the IP address <quote>127.0.0.1</quote>
603 in the boxes next to <quote>HTTP</quote> and <quote>Secure</quote> (HTTPS) and
604 then the number <quote>8118</quote> for <quote>port</quote>.
605 This tells your browser to send all web requests to <application>Privoxy</application>
606 instead of directly to the Internet.
609 <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
610 a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
611 address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
612 is running, or the equivalent hostname, e.g. <literal>192.168.1.1</literal>.
613 Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
614 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by
618 <application>Privoxy</application> does not currently handle
619 any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, etc. Be sure that
620 proxying any of these other protocols is not activated.
624 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nothing">
625 <title>I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening.
626 All the ads are there. What's wrong?</title>
629 Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
630 as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
631 the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
632 that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
633 is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
634 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>.
635 <!-- Use http://p.p/ instead of http://config.privoxy.org/ here because
636 of potential redirect caching problem (see next Q). -->
637 This should take you to a page titled <quote>This is Privoxy..</quote> with
638 access to <application>Privoxy's</application> internal configuration.
639 If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
640 <quote>Privoxy is not running</quote>, then the browser is not set up to use
641 your <application>Privoxy</application> installation.
642 If you receive anything else (probably nothing at all), it could either
643 be that the browser is not set up correctly, or that
644 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running at all. Check the <ulink
645 url="../user-manual/config.html#LOGFILE">log file</ulink>. For instructions
646 on starting <application>Privoxy</application> and browser configuration,
647 see the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
648 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
649 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
654 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="notused">
655 <title>I get a <quote>Privoxy is not being used</quote> dummy page although
656 Privoxy is running and being used.</title>
659 First, make sure that Privoxy is <emphasis>really</emphasis> running and
660 being used by visiting <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. You
661 should see the <application>Privoxy</application> main page. If not, see
662 the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
663 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
664 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
668 Now if <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> works for you, but
669 other parts of <application>Privoxy</application>'s web interface show
670 the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered before
671 <application>Privoxy</application> was being used. You need to clear your
672 browser's cache. Note that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since
673 that'll only refresh the dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
677 The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
678 example, <application>Mozilla/Netscape</application> users would click
679 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -->
680 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
681 then click both <quote><guibutton>Clear Memory Cache</guibutton></quote>
682 and <quote><guibutton>Clear Disk Cache</guibutton></quote>.
683 And, <application>Firefox</application> users would click
684 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -->
685 <guibutton>Privacy</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
686 then click <quote><guibutton>Clear Cache Now</guibutton></quote>.
694 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
696 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
697 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
698 <title id="actionsfile">What exactly is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
701 &my-app; utilizes the concept of <quote>
702 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink></quote>
703 that are used to manipulate and control web page data.
704 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">Actions files</ulink>
705 are where these <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink>
706 that <application>Privoxy</application> could take while processing a certain
707 request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions
708 that apply globally to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
709 There is a wide array of actions available that give the user a high degree
710 of control and flexibility on how to process each and every web page.
714 Actions can be defined on a <ulink
715 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</ulink> basis, i.e.
716 for single URLs, whole web sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be
717 grouped together and then applied to requests matching one or more patterns.
718 There are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
719 if you are blocking <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
720 as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given site,
721 you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your actions
722 files, preferably in <filename>user.action</filename>.
727 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="actionss">
728 <title>The <quote>actions</quote> concept confuses me. Please list
729 some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
731 For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer
732 to the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions file
733 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User
734 Manual</ulink>. It includes a <ulink
735 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">list of all actions</ulink>
736 and an <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions
737 file tutorial</ulink> to get you started.
742 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
743 <title id="actconfig">How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
744 way to do this?</title>
747 Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited
748 with a text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access
749 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface with your web browser
750 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
751 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and then select
752 <quote><ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View &
753 change the current configuration</ulink></quote> from the menu.
758 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
759 <title>There are several different <quote>actions</quote> files. What are
760 the differences?</title>
763 are being included by the developers, to be used for
764 different purposes: These are
765 <filename>default.action</filename>, the <quote>main</quote> actions file
766 which is actively maintained by the <application>Privoxy</application>
767 developers and typically sets the default policies, <filename>user.action</filename>, where users are encouraged
768 to make their private customizations, and <filename>standard.action</filename>,
769 which is for internal <application>Privoxy</application> use only.
770 Please see <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">the actions chapter</ulink>
771 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> for a more
772 detailed explanation.
776 Earlier versions included three different versions of the
777 <filename>default.action</filename> file. The new scheme allows for
778 greater flexibility of local configuration, and for browser based
779 selection of pre-defined <quote>aggressiveness</quote> levels.
784 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="getupdates"><title>Where can I get updated Actions Files?</title>
786 Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updates of
787 <filename>default.action</filename> will be
788 made available from time to time on the <ulink
789 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">files section</ulink> of
790 our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project page</ulink>.
794 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
795 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
796 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
797 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
802 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
804 The syntax and purpose of configuration files has remained the same
805 throughout the 3.x series. Although each release contains updated,
806 <quote>improved</quote> versions and it is recommended to use the newer
809 If upgrading from version prior to 3.0.4 the syntax for <literal>fast-redirects</literal>
810 has changed. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/whatsnew.html">What's New section</ulink>
811 of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for details.]]>
814 But all configuration files have substantially
815 changed from the <application>Junkbuster</application> days, and early
816 versions of <application>Privoxy 2.x</application>. The old files, like
817 <filename>blocklist</filename> will not work at all.
819 <![%p-newstuff;[ <para>
820 Refer to the <ulink url="../user-manual/whatsnew.html">What's New</ulink>
821 page for information on configuration changes that may occur from one release to another.
825 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="difficult">
826 <title>Why is the configuration so complicated?</title>
828 <quote>Complicated</quote> is in the eye of the beholder. Those that are
829 familiar with some of the underlying concepts, such as regular expression
830 syntax, take to it like a fish takes to water. Also, software that tries
831 hard to be <quote>user friendly</quote>, often lacks sophistication and
832 flexibility. There is always that trade-off there between power vs.
833 easy-of-use. Furthermore, anyone is welcome to contribute ideas and
834 implementations to enhance &my-app;.
838 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?</title>
840 The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these services.
841 It may, however, make all <ulink
842 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
843 temporary, so that your browser will forget your
844 login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would like not to have to log
845 in manually each time you access those websites, simply turn off all cookie handling
846 for them in the <filename>user.action</filename> file. An example for yahoo might
850 <screen># Allow all cookies for Yahoo login:
852 { -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink> }
853 .login.yahoo.com</screen>
856 These kinds of sites are often quite complex and heavy with
857 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> and
858 thus <quote>fragile</quote>. So if <emphasis>still</emphasis> a problem,
860 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> just for such
864 <screen># Gmail is a _fragile_ site:
866 { <literal>fragile</literal> }
868 mail.google.com</screen>
871 Be sure to flush your browser's caches whenever making these kinds of
872 changes, just to make sure the changes <quote>take</quote>.
875 Make sure the domain, host and path are appropriate as well. Your browser can
876 tell you where you are specifically and you should use that information for
877 your configuration settings. Note that above it is not referenced as
878 <literal>gmail.com</literal>, which is a valid domain name.
883 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configfiles"> <title>What's the difference between the
884 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> and <quote>Advanced</quote> defaults?</title>
886 Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not entirely trivial. To
887 help you get started, we provide you with three different default action
888 <quote>profiles</quote> in the web based actions file editor at <ulink
889 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
890 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html"><citetitle>User
891 Manual</citetitle></ulink> for a list of actions, and how the default
896 Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for
897 known popular <quote>problem</quote> sites are included, but in
898 general, the more aggressive your default settings are, the more exceptions
899 you will have to make later. New users are best to start off in
900 <quote>Cautious</quote> setting. This is safest and will have the fewest
901 problems. See the <ulink
902 url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>
903 for a more detailed discussion.
907 It should be noted that the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile (formerly known
908 as the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile) is more
909 aggressive, and will make use of some of
910 <application>Privoxy's</application> advanced features. Use at your own risk!
915 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration
916 with a browser? Does that not raise security issues?</title>
918 It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
919 browsers, although the whole <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> hierarchy
920 belongs to the user <quote>privoxy</quote>, with only 644 permissions.
923 When you use the browser-based editor, <application>Privoxy</application>
924 itself is writing to the config files. Because
925 <application>Privoxy</application> is running as the user <quote>privoxy</quote>,
926 it can update the config files.
929 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in
930 a LAN), you will probably want to turn the web-based editor and remote toggle
931 features off by setting <quote><literal><ulink
932 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>
933 0</literal></quote> and <quote><literal><ulink
934 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</ulink>
935 0</literal></quote> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
938 Note that in the default configuration, only local users (i.e. those on
939 <quote>localhost</quote>) can connect to <application>Privoxy</application>,
940 so this is not (normally) a security problem.
945 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
946 <title id="filterfile">What is the <filename>default.filter</filename> file? What is a <quote>filter</quote>?</title>
948 The <ulink url="../user-manual/filter-file.html"><filename>default.filter</filename></ulink>
949 file is where <emphasis>filters</emphasis> as supplied by the developers are defined.
950 Filters are a special subset of actions that can be used to modify or
951 remove, web page content on the fly. Filters apply to <emphasis>anything</emphasis>
952 in the page source (and optionally both client and server headers), including
953 HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used to accomplish this.
954 There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common annoyances. The
955 filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the
957 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER"><literal>filter</literal>
958 action</ulink> in one of the actions files. Filtering is automatically
959 disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
963 If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
964 the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and define
965 your own filters. This is potentially a very powerful feature, but
966 requires some expertise in both regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
967 <![%p-newstuff;[ You should
968 place any modifications to the default filters, or any new ones you create
969 in a separate file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>, so they won't
970 be overwritten during upgrades.
971 The ability to define multiple filter files
972 in <filename>config</filename> is a new feature as of v. 3.0.5.]]>
976 There is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
977 but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
978 <filename>default.filter</filename> file with the <ulink
979 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
984 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lanconfig">
985 <title>How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my
988 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
989 from <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> (localhost). To have it act as a server for
990 a network, this needs to be changed in the <ulink
991 url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>. Look for
993 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink></literal>
994 option, which may be commented out with a <quote>#</quote> symbol. Make sure
995 it is uncommented, and assign it the address of the LAN gateway interface,
996 and port number to use. Assuming your LAN address is 192.168.1.1 and you
997 wish to run <application>Privoxy</application> on port 8118, this line
1003 listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118</screen>
1007 Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
1008 all browsers on the network then to use this address and port number.
1012 Alternately, you can have <application>Privoxy</application> listen on
1013 all available interfaces:
1018 listen-address :8118</screen>
1022 And then use <application>Privoxy's</application>
1024 url="../user-manual/config.html#PERMIT-ACCESS">permit-access</ulink>
1025 feature to limit connections. A firewall in this situation is recommended
1030 The above steps should be the same for any TCP network, regardless of
1035 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> on a LAN with untrusted users,
1036 we recommend that you double-check the <ulink
1037 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security</ulink>
1044 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1045 <title id="noseeum">Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see anything.</title>
1047 The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the <ulink
1048 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
1049 action</ulink>. You have the choice of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
1050 image (aka <quote>blank</quote>), or a redirect to a custom image of your choice.
1051 Note that this choice only has effect for images which are blocked as images, i.e.
1052 whose URLs match both a <literal><ulink
1053 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</ulink></literal>
1054 <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><ulink
1055 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> action.
1058 If you want to see nothing, then change the <ulink
1059 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
1060 action</ulink> to <quote>blank</quote>. This can be done by editing the
1061 <filename>user.action</filename> file, or through the <ulink
1062 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
1067 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1068 <title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?</title>
1070 Remember that <link linkend="whatsanad">telling which image is an ad and which
1071 isn't</link>, is an educated guess. While we hope that the standard configuration
1072 is rather smart, it will make occasional mistakes. The checkerboard image is visually
1073 decent, and it shows you where images have been blocked, which can be very
1074 helpful in case some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was
1075 erroneously blocked. It is recommended for new users so they can
1076 <quote>see</quote> what is happening. Some people might also enjoy seeing how
1077 many banners they <emphasis>don't</emphasis> have to see.
1082 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1083 <title id="blockedbytext">I see some images being replaced by a text
1084 instead of the checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
1086 This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the
1087 page itself, but in separate HTML (sub)documents that are loaded into (i)frames
1088 or (i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images
1089 they get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image,
1090 which wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts
1091 only HTML when it has requested an HTML document.
1094 The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
1095 miniature two-liner if loaded into small frames, or full-blown with a
1096 large red "BLOCKED" banner if space allows.
1099 If you prefer the banners to be blocked by images, you must see to it that
1100 the HTML documents in which they are embedded are not blocked. Clicking
1101 the <quote>See why</quote> link offered in the substitute page will show
1102 you which rule blocked the page. After changing the rule and un-blocking
1103 the HTML documents, the browser will try to load the actual banner images
1104 and the usual image blocking will (hopefully!) kick in.
1109 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="srvany">
1110 <title>Can Privoxy run as a service
1111 on Win2K/NT/XP?</title>
1114 Yes. Version 3.0.5 introduces full <application>Windows</application> service
1115 functionality. See <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html#installation-pack-win">
1116 the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink> for details on how to install and configure
1117 <application>Privoxy</application> as a service.
1120 Earlier ]]>3.x versions could run as a system service using <command>srvany.exe</command>.
1121 See the discussion at <ulink
1122 url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118</ulink>,
1123 for details, and a sample configuration.
1128 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherproxy">
1129 <title>How can I make Privoxy work with other
1130 proxies like Squid or Tor?</title>
1132 This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of
1133 <application>Privoxy</application> with those of a another proxy.
1135 url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
1136 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> which
1137 describes how to do this, and the <link linkend="TOR">
1138 How do I use Privoxy together with
1139 Tor</link> section below.
1143 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="port-80">
1144 <title>Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80
1145 and thus avoid individual browser configuration?</title>
1148 No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds
1149 of proxies known as <quote>transparent</quote> proxies (see below).
1154 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="transparent">
1155 <title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>transparent
1156 </quote> proxy?</title>
1158 No, <application>Privoxy</application> currently does not have this ability,
1159 though it may be added in a future release. Transparent proxies require
1160 special handling of the request headers beyond what
1161 <application>Privoxy</application> is now capable of.
1165 Chaining <application>Privoxy</application> behind another proxy that has
1166 this ability should work though.
1168 url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
1169 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink>. As
1170 a transparent proxy to be used for chaining we suggest Transproxy
1171 (<ulink url="http://transproxy.sourceforge.net/">http://transproxy.sourceforge.net/</ulink>).
1176 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook">
1177 <title>How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook
1180 <application>Outlook Express</application> uses <application>Internet Explorer</application>
1181 components to both render HTML, and fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email.
1182 So however you have <application>Privoxy</application> configured to work
1183 with IE, this configuration should automatically be shared.
1187 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook-more">
1188 <title>How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?</title>
1190 The short answer is, you can't. <application>Privoxy</application> has no way
1191 of knowing which particular application makes a request, so there is no way to
1192 distinguish between web pages and HTML mail.
1193 <application>Privoxy</application> just blindly proxies all requests. In the
1194 case of <application>Outlook Express</application> (see above), OE uses
1195 IE anyway, and there is no way for <application>Privoxy</application> to ever
1196 be able to distinguish between them (nor could any other proxy type application for
1200 For a good discussion of some of the issues involved (including privacy and
1201 security issues), see
1202 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118</ulink>.
1206 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="sneaky-cookies">
1207 <title>I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?</title>
1210 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Cookies</ulink> can be
1211 set in several ways. The classic method is via the
1212 <literal>Set-Cookie</literal> HTTP header. This is straightforward, and an
1213 easy one to manipulate, such as the &my-app; concept of
1214 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink>.
1215 There is also the possibility of using
1216 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> to
1217 set cookies (&my-app; calls these <literal>content-cookies</literal>). This
1218 is trickier because the syntax can vary widely, and thus requires a certain
1219 amount of guesswork. It is not realistic to catch all of these short of
1220 disabling Javascript, which would break many sites. And lastly, if the
1221 cookies are embedded in a HTTPS/SSL secure session via Javascript, they are beyond
1222 <application>Privoxy's</application> reach.
1225 All in all, &my-app; can help manage cookies in general, can help minimize
1226 the loss of privacy posed by cookies, but can't realistically stop all
1231 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="evil-cookies">
1232 <title>Are all cookies bad? Why?</title>
1234 No, in fact there are many beneficial uses of
1236 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>. Cookies are just a
1237 method that browsers can use to store data between pages, or between browser
1238 sessions. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, and the user's life is a
1239 bit easier as a result. But there is a long history of some websites taking
1240 advantage of this layer of trust, and using the data they glean from you and
1241 your browsing habits for their own purposes, and maybe to your potential
1242 detriment. Such sites are using you and storing their data on your system.
1243 That is why the security conscious watch from whom those cookies come, and why
1244 they really <emphasis>need</emphasis> to be there.
1248 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Wikipedia cookie
1249 definition</ulink> for more.
1253 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allow-cookies">
1254 <title>How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?</title>
1257 There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
1258 allow only <quote>session cookies</quote>, which means the cookies only last
1259 for the current browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related
1260 to cookies. But there may be cases where we want cookies to last.
1263 To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted,
1264 both in and out, for <literal>example.com</literal>:
1268 { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
1269 .example.com</screen>
1272 Place the above in <filename>user.action</filename>. Note some of these may
1273 be off by default anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm
1274 being explicit in what you want to happen. <filename>user.action</filename>
1275 includes an alias for this situation, called
1276 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal>.
1280 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="multiples">
1281 <title>Can I have separate configurations for different users?</title>
1283 Each instance of <application>Privoxy</application> has its own
1284 configuration, including such attributes as the TCP port that it listens on.
1285 What you can do is run multiple instances of <application>Privoxy</application>, each with
1287 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
1288 configuration setting, and configuration path, and then
1289 each of these can have their own configurations. Think of it as per-port
1293 Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider having
1294 groups of users that might share like configurations.
1298 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whitelists">
1299 <title>Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of
1300 <quote>good</quote> sites?</title>
1302 Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple white-listing.
1303 Here's one real easy one:
1306 ############################################################
1308 ############################################################
1309 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">+block</ulink> }
1310 / # Block *all* URLs
1312 ############################################################
1314 ############################################################
1315 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
1318 games.example.com</screen>
1320 This allows access to only those three sites by first blocking all URLs, and
1321 then subsequently allowing three specific exceptions.
1324 A more interesting approach is <application>Privoxy's</application>
1325 <literal>trustfile</literal> concept, which incorporates the notion of
1326 <quote>trusted referrers</quote>. See the <ulink
1327 url="../user-manual/config.html#TRUSTFILE">User Manual Trust</ulink>
1331 These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There
1332 are various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
1333 elsewhere here and in <ulink url="../user-manual/">the User Manual</ulink>)
1334 so that users can't modify their own configuration and easily circumvent the
1339 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="no-adblock">
1340 <title>How can I turn off ad-blocking?</title>
1342 Ad blocking is achieved through a complex application of various &my-app;
1343 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions</ulink>. These
1344 actions are deployed against simple images, banners, flash animations,
1345 text pages, JavaScript, pop-ups and pop-unders, etc., so its not as simple as
1346 just turning one or two actions off. The various actions that make up
1347 &my-app; ad blocking are hard-coded into the default configuration files. It
1348 has been assumed that everyone using &my-app; is interested in this
1352 If you want to do without this, there are several approaches you can take:
1353 You can manually undo the many block rules in
1354 <filename>default.action</filename>. Or even easier, just create your own
1355 <filename>default.action</filename> file from scratch without the many ad
1356 blocking rules, and corresponding exceptions. Or lastly, if you are not
1357 concerned about the additional blocks that are done for privacy reasons, you
1358 can very easily over-ride <emphasis>all</emphasis> blocking with the
1359 following very simple rule in your <filename>user.action</filename>:
1363 # Unblock everybody, everywhere
1364 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
1365 / # UN-Block *all* URLs</screen>
1368 Or even a more comprehensive reversing of various ad related actions:
1372 # Unblock everybody, everywhere, and turn off appropriate filtering, etc
1373 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> \
1374 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">-filter{banners-by-size}</ulink> \
1375 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">-filter{banners-by-link}</ulink> \
1376 <literal>allow-popups</literal> \
1378 / # UN-Block *all* URLs and allow ads</screen>
1381 This last <quote>action</quote> in this compound statement,
1382 <literal>allow-popups</literal>, is an <ulink
1383 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> that disables
1384 various pop-up blocking features.
1388 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="templates">
1389 <title>How can I have custom template pages, like the
1390 <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
1392 &my-app; <quote>templates</quote> are specialized text files utilized by
1393 &my-app; for various purposes and can easily be modified using any text
1394 editor. All the template pages are installed in a sub-directory appropriately
1395 named: <filename>templates</filename>. Knowing something about HTML syntax
1396 will of course be helpful. You cannot rename any of these files, or create
1397 completely new templates, that is not possible. But you can change the page
1398 content to whatever you like. Be forewarned that these files are subject to
1399 being overwritten during upgrades, so be sure to save any customizations.
1403 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blockall">
1404 <title>How can I remove the <quote>Go There Anyway</quote> link from
1405 the <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
1407 Editing the BLOCKED template page (see above) may dissuade some users, but
1408 this method is easily circumvented. Where you need this level of control, you
1409 should build &my-app; from source, and enable various features that are
1410 available as compile-time options. You should
1411 <command>configure</command> the sources as follows:
1415 ./configure --disable-toggle --disable-editor --disable-force</screen>
1418 This will create an executable with hard-coded security features so that
1419 &my-app; does not allow easy bypassing of blocked sites, or changing the
1420 current configuration via any connected user's web browser. Some of these
1421 features can also be toggled on/off via options in
1422 <application>Privoxy's</application> main
1424 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">config</ulink> file. But
1425 compiled-in compliance is a much better method of ensuring that a block is
1429 Default builds of &my-app; are typically built with these features
1436 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1439 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1441 <sect1 id="misc"><title>Miscellaneous</title>
1443 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1444 <title id="slowsme">How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This
1445 has to add extra time to browsing.</title>
1447 How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the host
1448 system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions are being triggered,
1449 the size of the page, the bandwidth of the connection, etc.
1452 Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
1453 speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically being
1454 retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by
1455 <application>Privoxy</application> itself for each page, is relatively small
1456 in the overall scheme of things, and happens very quickly. This is typically
1457 more than offset by time saved not downloading and rendering ad images (if ad
1458 blocking is being used).
1462 <quote>Filtering</quote> content via the <literal><ulink
1463 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> or
1465 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1466 actions will certainly cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document
1467 needs to be buffered before displaying. And on very large documents, filtering may have
1468 some measurable impact. How much depends on the page size, the actual
1469 definition of the filter(s), etc. See below. Most other actions have little
1470 to no impact on speed.
1473 Also, when filtering is enabled, typically there is a disabling of
1474 compression, (see <ulink
1475 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>).
1476 This can have an impact on speed as well. Again, the page size, etc. will
1477 determine how much of an impact.
1483 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="loadingtimes"><title>I notice considerable
1484 delays in page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. What's wrong?</title>
1486 If you use any <literal><ulink
1487 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> action,
1488 such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc, or the <literal><ulink
1489 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1490 action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
1491 mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser during this time.
1494 The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers, but
1495 the feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start rendering
1496 incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is
1497 more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely large documents
1498 may have some impact on the time to load the page where there is filtering
1499 being done. But overall, the difference should be very minimal. If there is a
1500 big impact, then probably some other situation is contributing (like
1501 anti-virus software).
1504 Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note
1505 that if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should
1506 not be filtered, could be. <application>Privoxy</application> only knows how
1507 to differentiate filterable content because of the MIME type as reported by
1508 the server, or because of some configuration setting that enables/disables
1514 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configurl"><title>What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and
1515 "http://p.p/"?</title>
1517 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink> is the
1518 address of <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in user interface, and
1519 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> is a shortcut for it.
1522 Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet,
1523 it can simply intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in
1524 <quote>web server</quote>.
1527 This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
1528 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1529 takes you to a page saying <quote>This is Privoxy ...</quote>, everything is OK.
1530 If you get a page saying <quote>Privoxy is not working</quote> instead, then
1531 your browser didn't use <application>Privoxy</application> for the request,
1532 hence it could not be intercepted, and you have accessed the <emphasis>real</emphasis>
1533 web site at config.privoxy.org.
1536 With recent versions of <application>Privoxy</application> (version 2.9.x and
1537 later), the user interface features information on the run time status, the
1538 configuration, and even a built-in editor for the <ulink
1539 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>.
1543 Note that the built-in URLs from earlier versions of <application>Junkbuster</application>
1544 / <application>Privoxy</application>, http://example.com/show-proxy-args and http://i.j.b/,
1545 are no longer supported. If you still use such an old version, you should really consider
1546 upgrading to &p-version;.
1551 out of date 09/02/06 HB
1552 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blocklist"><title>Do you still maintain the blocklists?</title>
1554 No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the <ulink
1555 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>, which are
1556 actively maintained instead. See next question ...
1560 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads, or report
1563 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> for
1564 various ways to interact with the developers.
1569 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads2"><title>If I do submit missed ads, will
1570 they be included in future updates?</title>
1572 Whether such submissions are eventually included in the
1573 <filename>default.action</filename> configuration file depends on how
1574 significant the issue is. We of course want to address any potential
1575 problem with major, high-profile sites such as <citetitle>Google</citetitle>,
1576 <citetitle>Yahoo</citetitle>, etc. Any site with global or regional reach,
1577 has a good chance of being a candidate. But at the other end of the spectrum
1578 are any number of smaller, low-profile sites such as for local clubs or
1579 schools. Since their reach and impact are much less, they are best handled by
1580 inclusion in the user's <filename>user.action</filename>, and thus would be
1581 unlikely to be included.
1587 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="noonecares"><title>Why doesn't anyone answer my support
1590 Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
1591 could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it, no
1592 one has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported
1593 numerous times already, or because not enough information was provided to help
1594 us help you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
1600 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ip"><title>How can I hide my IP address?</title>
1602 If you run both the browser and &my-app; locally, you cannot hide your IP
1603 address with <application>Privoxy</application> or ultimately any other
1604 software alone. The server needs to know your IP address so that it knows
1605 where to send the responses back.
1608 There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which
1609 provide a further level of indirection between you and the web server.
1612 However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need
1613 a password, not because they would offer any real anonymity.
1614 Most of them will log your IP address and make it available to the
1615 authorities in case you violate the law of the country they run in. In fact
1616 you can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information
1617 on (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
1620 Your best bet is to chain <application>Privoxy</application>
1621 with <ulink url="http://tor.eff.org/">Tor</ulink>,
1622 an <ulink url="http://www.eff.org/">EFF</ulink> supported onion routing system.
1623 The configuration details can be found in
1624 <ulink url="#TOR">How do I use <application>Privoxy</application> together with <application>Tor</application> section</ulink>
1629 There is, however, even in the single-machine case the possibility to make the
1630 server believe that your machine is in fact a shared proxy serving a large
1631 LAN, and we are looking into that.
1633 I assume this is about sending fake forward IP addresses?
1634 David and I looked into it and considered it a waste of time to implement.
1639 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1640 <title id="anonforsure">Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
1642 No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
1643 <ulink url="#TOR">chain <application>Privoxy</application> with <application>Tor</application></ulink>
1644 or a similar system and know what you're doing when it comes to configuring
1645 the rest of your system, it would be safest to assume that everything you do
1646 on the Web can be traced back to you.
1649 <application>Privoxy</application> can remove various information about you,
1650 and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
1651 you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But it neither
1652 hides your IP address, nor can it guarantee that the rest of the system
1653 behaves correctly. There are several possibilities how a web sites can find
1654 out who you are, even if you are using a strict <application>Privoxy</application>
1655 configuration and chained it with <application>Tor</application>.
1658 Most of <application>Privoxy's</application> protection can be easily subverted
1659 by an insecure browser configuration, therefore you should use a browser that can
1660 be configured to only execute code from trusted sites, and be careful which sites you trust.
1661 For example there is no point in having <application>Privoxy</application>
1662 modify the User-Agent header, if websites can get all the information they want
1663 through JavaScript, ActiveX, Flash, Java etc.
1666 A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such
1667 as when transferring a file by FTP. <application>Privoxy</application>
1668 does not filter FTP. If you need this feature, or are concerned about the
1669 mail handler of your browser disclosing your email address, you might
1670 consider products such as <application>NSClean</application>.
1673 Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give
1674 out any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
1675 agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
1676 that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
1677 source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
1683 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1684 <title id="proxytest">A test site says I am not using a Proxy.</title>
1686 Good! Actually, they are probably testing for some other kinds of proxies.
1687 Hiding yourself completely would require additional steps.
1691 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="tor"><title>How do I use Privoxy
1692 together with Tor?</title>
1694 Before you configure <application>Privoxy</application> to use <application>Tor</application>
1695 (<ulink url="http://tor.eff.org/">http://tor.eff.org/</ulink>),
1696 please follow the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> chapters
1697 <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">2. Installation</ulink> and
1698 <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">5. Startup</ulink> to make sure
1699 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is setup correctly.
1702 If it is, refer to <ulink url="http://tor.eff.org/documentation.html.en">Tor's
1703 extensive documentation</ulink> to learn how to install <application>Tor</application>,
1704 and make sure <application>Tor</application>'s logfile says that
1705 <quote>Tor has successfully opened a circuit</quote> and it
1706 <quote>looks like client functionality is working</quote>.
1709 If either <application>Tor</application> or <application>Privoxy</application>
1710 isn't working, their combination most likely will neither. Testing them on their
1711 own will also help you to direct problem reports to the right audience.
1712 If <application>Privoxy</application> isn't working, don't bother the
1713 <application>Tor</application> developers. If <application>Tor</application>
1714 isn't working, don't send bug reports to the <application>Privoxy</application> Team.
1717 If you verified that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>Tor</application>
1718 are working, it is time to connect them. As far as <application>Privoxy</application>
1719 is concerned, <application>Tor</application> is just another proxy that can be reached
1720 by socks4 or socks4a. Most likely you are interested in <application>Tor</application>
1721 to increase your anonymity level, therefore you should use socks4a,
1722 to make sure <application>Privoxy's</application> DNS requests are
1723 done through <application>Tor</application> and thus invisible to your local network.
1728 Since <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.5, its
1729 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>
1730 is already prepared for <application>Tor</application>, if you are using a
1731 default <application>Tor</application> configuration and run it on the same
1732 system as &my-app;, you just have to edit the
1733 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding section</ulink>
1734 and uncomment the line:
1738 # forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
1742 This is enough to reach the Internet, but additionally you should
1743 uncomment the following forward rules, to make sure your local network is still
1744 reachable through Privoxy:
1748 # forward 192.168.*.*/ .
1749 # forward 10.*.*.*/ .
1750 # forward 127.*.*.*/ .
1754 Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will
1755 be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the alternative is
1756 that you can't reach the network at all.
1757 If you also want to be able to reach servers in your local
1758 network by using their names, you will need additional
1759 exceptions that look like this:
1763 # forward localhost/ .
1767 Save the modified configuration file and open
1768 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status/</ulink>
1769 in your browser, confirm that <application>Privoxy</application> has reloaded its configuration
1770 and that there are no other forward lines, unless you know that you need them. If everything looks good,
1772 <ulink url="http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#head-0e1cc2ac330ede8c6ad1ac0d0db0ac163b0e6143">Tor
1773 Faq 4.2</ulink> to learn how to verify that you are really using <application>Tor</application>.
1776 Afterward, please take the time to at least skim through the rest
1777 of <application>Tor's</application> documentation. Make sure you understand
1778 what <application>Tor</application> does, why it is no replacement for
1779 application level security, and why you shouldn't use it for unencrypted logins.
1783 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1784 <title id="sitebreak">Might some things break because header information or
1785 content is being altered?</title>
1788 Definitely. It is common for sites to use browser type, browser version,
1789 HTTP header content, and various other techniques in order to dynamically
1790 decide what to display and how to display it. What you see, and what I see,
1791 might be very different. There are many, many ways that this can be handled,
1792 so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
1796 <quote>User-Agent</quote> is often used in this way to identify
1797 the browser, and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now (at least not
1798 further than removing the OS information) is not recommended, since so many
1799 sites do look for it. You may get undesirable results by changing just this
1804 Also, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
1805 characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the
1806 User Agent header. Giving a <quote>User Agent</quote> with the wrong
1807 operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in these languages
1808 to be garbled; Surfers to Eastern European sites should change it to
1809 something closer. And then some page access counters work by looking at the
1810 <quote>Referer</quote> header; they may fail or break if unavailable. The
1811 weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their server when no
1812 <quote>Referer</quote> or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
1813 can forge both headers without giving information away). There are
1814 many other ways things that can go wrong when trying to fool a web server. The
1815 results of which could inadvertently cause pages to load incorrectly,
1816 partially, or even not at all. And there may be no obvious clues as to just
1817 what went wrong, or why. Nowhere will there be a message that says
1818 <quote><emphasis>Turn off <literal>fast-redirects</literal> or else!</emphasis>
1823 Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree,
1828 If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
1829 accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
1830 be required, but by no means the only one.
1836 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1837 <title id="caching">Can Privoxy act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
1838 speed up web browsing?</title>
1840 No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
1841 <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> for this. And, yes,
1842 before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
1843 with other kinds of proxies like <application>Squid</application>.
1844 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding
1845 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
1846 manual</ulink> for details.
1850 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1851 <title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?</title>
1853 Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can.
1854 <application>Privoxy</application> can help protect your privacy, but not
1855 protect you from intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible
1856 and recommended to use <emphasis>both</emphasis>.
1860 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1861 <title id="wasted">I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where
1862 ads used to be. Why?</title>
1864 It is technically possible to eliminate banners and ads in a way that frees
1865 their allocated page space. This could easily be done by blocking with
1866 <application>Privoxy's</application> filters,
1867 and eliminating the <emphasis>entire</emphasis> image references from the
1871 But, this would consume considerably more CPU resources (IOW, slow things
1872 down), would likely destroy the layout of some web pages which rely on the
1873 banners utilizing a certain amount of page space, and might fail in other
1874 cases, where the screen space is reserved (e.g. by HTML tables for instance).
1875 Also, making ads and banners disappear without any trace complicates
1876 troubleshooting, and would sooner or later be problematic.
1879 The better alternative is to instead let them stay, and block the resulting
1880 requests for the banners themselves as is now the case. This leaves either
1881 empty space, or the familiar checkerboard pattern.
1884 So the developers won't support this in the default configuration, but you
1885 can of course define appropriate filters yourself to achieve this.
1889 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1890 <title id="ssl">How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
1892 Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
1893 and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably <emphasis>secure</emphasis>,
1894 there is little that <application>Privoxy</application> can do but hand the raw
1895 gibberish data though from one end to the other unprocessed.
1898 The only exception to this is blocking by host patterns, as the client needs
1899 to tell <application>Privoxy</application> the name of the remote server,
1900 so that <application>Privoxy</application> can establish the connection.
1901 If that name matches a host-only pattern, the connection will be blocked.
1904 As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
1905 seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often
1906 the banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless
1907 for efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of
1908 <application>Privoxy</application>'s ad blocking.
1911 <quote>Content cookies</quote> (those that are embedded in the actual HTML or
1912 JS page content, see <literal><ulink
1913 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</ulink></literal>),
1914 in an SSL transaction will be impossible to block under these conditions.
1915 Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very common scenario since most
1916 cookies come by traditional means.
1921 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1922 <title id="secure">Privoxy runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
1923 secure is it? Do I need to take any special precautions?</title>
1925 There are no known exploits that might affect
1926 <application>Privoxy</application>. On Unix-like systems,
1927 <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
1928 user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
1929 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens to requests
1930 from <quote>localhost</quote> only. The server aspect of
1931 <application>Privoxy</application> is not itself directly exposed to the
1932 Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
1933 <application>Privoxy</application> serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to
1934 be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
1935 you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main
1936 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration file and check all <ulink
1937 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security
1938 options</ulink>. All LAN hosts can then use this as their proxy address
1939 in the browser proxy configuration, but <application>Privoxy</application>
1940 will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can be defined in addition,
1941 and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
1946 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff">
1947 <title>How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?</title>
1949 The easiest way is to access <application>Privoxy</application> with your
1950 browser by using the remote toggle URL: <ulink
1951 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>.
1952 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/appendix.html#BOOKMARKLETS">Bookmarklets section</ulink>
1953 of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for an easy way to access this
1959 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="reallyoff">
1960 <title>When <quote>disabled</quote> is Privoxy totally
1961 out of the picture?</title>
1963 No, this just means all filtering and actions are disabled.
1964 <application>Privoxy</application> is still acting as a proxy, but just not
1965 doing any of the things that <application>Privoxy</application> would
1966 normally be expected to do. It is still a <quote>middle-man</quote> in
1967 the interaction between your browser and web sites. See below to bypass
1972 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff2">
1973 <title>How can I tell Privoxy to totally ignore certain sites?</title>
1975 Bypassing a proxy, or proxying based on arbitrary criteria, is purely a browser
1976 configuration issue, not a &my-app; issue. Modern browsers typically do have
1977 settings for not proxying certain sites. Check your browser's help files.
1982 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="crunch">
1983 <title>My logs show Privoxy <quote>crunches</quote>
1984 ads, but also its own internal CGI pages. What is a <quote>crunch</quote>?</title>
1986 A <quote>crunch</quote> simply means <application>Privoxy</application> intercepted
1987 <emphasis>something</emphasis>, nothing more. Often this is indeed ads or
1988 banners, but <application>Privoxy</application> uses the same mechanism for
1989 trapping requests for its own internal pages. For instance, a request for
1990 <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration page at: <ulink
1991 url="http://config.privoxy.org">http://config.privoxy.org</ulink>, is
1992 intercepted (i.e. it does not go out to the 'net), and the familiar CGI
1993 configuration is returned to the browser, and the log consequently will show
1994 a <quote>crunch</quote>.
1998 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads">
1999 <title>Can Privoxy effect files that I download
2000 from a webserver? FTP server?</title>
2002 From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between
2003 viewing a document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of
2004 <application>Privoxy</application>. If there is a match for a <literal><ulink
2005 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> pattern,
2006 it will still be blocked, and of course this is obvious.
2009 Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always
2010 so obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
2011 viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
2012 advertisement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course,
2013 one of these presumably is <quote>bad</quote> content that we don't want, and
2014 the other is <quote>good</quote> content that we do want.
2015 <application>Privoxy</application> is blind to the differences, and can only
2016 distinguish <quote>good from bad</quote> by the configuration parameters
2017 <emphasis>we</emphasis> give it.
2020 <application>Privoxy</application> knows the differences in files according
2021 to the <quote>Document Type</quote> as reported by the webserver. If this is
2022 reported accurately (e.g. <quote>application/zip</quote> for a zip archive),
2023 then <application>Privoxy</application> knows to ignore these where
2024 appropriate. <application>Privoxy</application> potentially can filter HTML
2025 as well as plain text documents, subject to configuration parameters of
2026 course. Also, documents that are of an unknown type (generally assumed to be
2027 <quote>text/plain</quote>) can be filtered, as will those that might be
2028 incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a file is a downloaded file
2029 that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have been
2030 altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
2033 Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types reported as
2034 <quote>text/plain</quote>. Prior to this, <application>Privoxy</application>
2035 did filter this document type.
2038 In short, filtering is <quote>ON</quote> if a) the Document Type as reported
2039 by the webserver is appropriate <emphasis>and</emphasis> b) the configuration
2040 allows it (or at least does not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic
2041 cookie anywhere to say this is <quote>good</quote> and this is
2042 <quote>bad</quote>. It's the configuration that let's it all happen or not.
2045 If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
2046 particularly if the content is source code, or other critical content. Source
2047 code sometimes might be mistaken for Javascript (i.e. the kind that might
2048 open a pop-up window). It is recommended to turn off filtering for download
2049 sites (particularly if the content may be plain text files and you are using
2050 version 3.0.2 or earlier) in your <filename>user.action</filename> file. And
2051 also, for any site or page where making <emphasis>any</emphasis> changes at
2052 all to the content is to be avoided.
2055 <application>Privoxy</application> does not do FTP at all, only HTTP
2056 and HTTPS (SSL) protocols, so please don't try.
2060 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads2">
2061 <title>I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy
2062 altered it! Yikes, what is wrong!</title>
2068 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="hostsfile">
2069 <title>Should I continue to use a <quote>HOSTS</quote> file for ad-blocking?</title>
2071 One time-tested technique to defeat common ads is to trick the local DNS
2072 system by giving a phony IP address for the ad generator in the local
2073 <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, typically using <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>, aka
2074 <literal>localhost</literal>. This effectively blocks the ad.
2077 There is no reason to use this technique in conjunction with
2078 <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application>
2079 does essentially the same thing, much more elegantly and with much more
2080 flexibility. A large <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, in fact, not only
2081 duplicates effort, but may get in the way. It is recommended to remove
2082 such entries from your <filename>HOSTS</filename> file. If you think
2083 your hosts list is neglected by <application>Privoxy's </application>
2084 configuration, consider adding your list to your <filename>user.action</filename> file:
2091 ads.galore.example.com
2092 etc.example.com</screen>
2096 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="seealso">
2097 <title>Where can I find more information about Privoxy
2098 and related issues?</title>
2099 <!-- Include seealso.sgml boilerplate: -->
2101 <!-- end boilerplate -->
2106 <ulink url="../user-manual/seealso.html">user-manual</ulink> for
2112 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="microsuck">
2113 <title>I've noticed that Privoxy changes <quote>Microsoft</quote> to
2114 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>! Why are you manipulating my browsing?</title>
2117 We're not. The text substitutions that you are seeing are disabled
2118 in the default configuration as shipped. You have either manually
2119 activated the <quote><literal>fun</literal></quote> filter which
2120 is clearly labeled <quote>Text replacements for subversive browsing
2121 fun!</quote> or you are using an older Privoxy version and have implicitly
2122 activated it by choosing the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile in the
2123 web-based editor. Please upgrade!
2127 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="valid">
2128 <title>Does Privoxy produce <quote>valid</quote> HTML (or XHTML)?</title>
2131 Privoxy generates HTML in both its own <quote>templates</quote>, and possibly
2132 whenever there are text substitutions via a &my-app; filter. While this
2133 should always conform to the HTML 4.01 specifications, it has not been
2134 validated against this or any other standard.
2142 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2144 <sect1 id="trouble">
2145 <title>Troubleshooting</title>
2147 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
2148 <title id="refused">I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting
2149 <quote>connection refused</quote> message with every web page. Why?</title>
2151 There are several possibilities:
2156 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running. Solution: verify
2157 that &my-app; is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running.
2158 Look at <application>Privoxy's</application> logs to see what they say.
2160 <listitem><para>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
2161 <application>Privoxy</application> is using. Solution: verify that &my-app;
2162 and your browser are set to the same port (<literal>listen-address</literal>).
2164 <listitem><para>Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem or a
2165 problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: temporarily alter your
2166 configuration and take the forwarders out of the equation.
2169 Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution:
2170 try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple test.
2177 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2178 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="error503">
2179 <title>Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</title>
2181 More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has
2182 been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running! The solution is
2183 to either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
2184 something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products
2185 may cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
2189 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
2190 <title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
2191 still getting through. How?</title>
2193 If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be
2194 held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without
2195 the need for any request to the server, and <application>Privoxy</application>
2196 will not be involved. Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.
2200 If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
2201 applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <ulink
2202 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
2203 and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking
2204 spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And
2205 remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be
2206 entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different
2207 servers than the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should
2208 be able to get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can
2209 find the correct URL by looking at <application>Privoxy's</application> logs.
2212 Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one
2213 requested URL: <literal>www.example.com</literal> (name of site was changed
2214 for this example, the number of requests is real). You can see in this the
2215 complexity of what goes into making up this one <quote>page</quote>. There
2216 are eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate URLs
2217 requested in all, making up all manner of images, Shockwave Flash,
2218 JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related content. Some of this
2219 content is obviously <quote>good</quote> or <quote>bad</quote>, but not all.
2220 Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to outside domains
2221 that seem to be identifying themselves with suspicious looking names, making
2222 our job a little easier. &my-app; has <quote>crunched</quote> (meaning caught
2223 and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
2228 Request: www.example.com/
2229 Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
2230 Request: img.example.com/main.css
2231 Request: img.example.com/sr.js
2232 Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
2233 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
2234 Request: img.example.com/pb.png
2235 Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch!
2236 Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch!
2237 Request: img.example.com/p.gif
2238 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch!
2239 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch!
2240 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch!
2241 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
2242 Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch!
2243 Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
2244 Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
2245 Request: img.example.com/mt.png
2246 Request: img.example.com/mm.png
2247 Request: img.example.com/mb.png
2248 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch!
2249 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
2250 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
2251 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch!
2252 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch!
2253 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
2254 Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch!
2255 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
2256 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch!
2257 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
2258 Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
2259 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch!
2260 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
2265 Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to
2266 behave perfectly <quote>normal</quote> (minus some ads, of course).
2271 <sect2 id="badsite" renderas="sect3">
2272 <title >One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy.
2273 What can I do?</title>
2276 First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
2277 by toggling off <application>Privoxy</application> through <ulink
2278 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>,
2279 and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
2280 while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and memory
2285 If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem.
2287 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
2288 and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which
2289 actions are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions
2290 files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs
2291 for this site too, to see what else might be happening. Many sites are
2292 complex and require a number of related pages to help present their content.
2293 Look at what else might be used by the page in question, and what of that
2294 might be <emphasis>required</emphasis>.
2295 Now, armed with this information, go to
2297 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2298 and select the appropriate actions files for editing. </para>
2300 You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that
2301 you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there,
2302 or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended
2303 way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only
2304 if the problem persists, disable more and more actions until you have
2305 identified the culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions
2306 on again. Remember to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
2309 Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
2310 the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest
2311 way to deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your
2312 site to a <literal>{ fragile }</literal> section in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2313 which is an alias that turns off most <quote>dangerous</quote>
2314 actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
2315 your privacy and protection more than necessary,
2318 Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <ulink
2319 url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">User Manual appendix,
2320 Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</ulink>.
2321 There is also an <ulink
2322 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions tutorial</ulink>
2323 with general configuration information and examples.
2326 As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting that will
2327 bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers can do this.
2333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2334 <sect2 id="dun" renderas="sect3">
2335 <title>After installing Privoxy, I have to log in
2336 every time I start IE. What gives?</title>
2339 This is a quirk that effects the installation of
2340 <application>Privoxy</application>, in conjunction with Internet Explorer and
2341 Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The symptoms may
2342 appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or passwords.
2346 When setting up an NT based Windows system with
2347 <application>Privoxy</application> you may find that things do not seem to be
2348 doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably have set
2349 up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking (DUN) when
2350 logged in with administrator privileges. You will probably have made this DUN
2351 connection available to other accounts that you may have set-up on your
2352 system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes accounts suitably
2353 configured for the kids.
2357 When setting up <application>Privoxy</application> in this environment you
2358 will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the
2359 specific DUN connection on which you wish to use
2360 <application>Privoxy</application>. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up
2361 becomes user specific. In this instance you will see no difference if you
2362 change the DUN connection under the account used to set-up the connection.
2363 However when you do this from another user you will notice that the DUN
2364 connection changes to make available to "Me only". You will also find that
2365 you have to store the password under each different user!
2369 The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each
2370 set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for
2371 each user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations
2372 rather than common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after
2373 re-booting your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for
2374 the password. Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
2378 [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
2383 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2384 <sect2 id="ftp" renderas="sect3">
2385 <title>I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy
2386 is blocking me.</title>
2388 <application>Privoxy</application> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic,
2389 so do not configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
2390 as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <emphasis>any protocol other than HTTP
2391 or HTTPS (SSL)</emphasis>.
2394 Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with
2395 a URL like <literal>ftp://ftp.example.com</literal>, your browser is making
2396 an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
2397 speak FTP, <application>Privoxy</application> does not, and cannot proxy
2401 To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <quote>proxy</quote>
2402 setting, which will enable various protocols, including
2403 <emphasis>both</emphasis> HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible to
2404 accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this
2405 happens, <application>Privoxy</application> will indeed cause problems since
2406 it does not know FTP. <![%p-newstuff;[Newer version will give a sane error
2407 message if a FTP connection is attempted.]]> Just disable the FTP setting
2408 and all will be well again.
2411 Will <application>Privoxy</application> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely.
2412 There just is not much reason, and the work to make this happen is more than
2417 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2418 <sect2 id="osxie" renderas="sect3">
2419 <title>In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
2420 Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</title>
2422 Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide
2423 network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open System
2424 Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane that
2425 comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox
2426 is checked and enter <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> in the entry field.
2427 Enter <literal>8118</literal> in the Port field. The next time you start
2428 IE, it should reflect these values.
2432 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2433 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="osxuninstall">
2434 <title>In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
2435 uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
2436 empty the trash.</title>
2438 Just dragging the <application>Privoxy</application> folder to the trash is
2439 not enough to delete it. <application>Privoxy</application> supplies an
2440 <application>uninstall.command</application> file that takes care of
2441 these details. Open the trash, drag the <application>uninstall.command</application>
2442 file out of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for
2443 confirmation and the administration password.
2446 The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash
2447 from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
2452 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2453 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="osximages">
2454 <title>In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
2455 experience random delays in page loading. I'm using
2456 <literal>localhost</literal> as my browser's proxy setting.</title>
2458 We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in OSX, but don't fully
2459 understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to
2460 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> instead of <literal>localhost</literal>
2461 works around the problem.
2465 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2466 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blankpage">
2467 <title>I get a completely blank page at one site. <quote>View Source</quote>
2468 shows only: <markup><![CDATA[<html><body></body></html>]]></markup>. Without
2469 Privoxy the page loads fine.</title>
2471 Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in
2472 <ulink url="http://www.php.net/"><application>PHP</application></ulink>,
2473 which results in empty pages being sent if the client explicitly requests
2474 an uncompressed page, like <application>Privoxy</application> does.
2475 This bug has been fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
2478 To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try adding
2479 the site to a <literal>-prevent-compression</literal> section in
2480 <filename>user.action</filename>:
2483 # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
2485 {-prevent-compression}
2486 .example.com</screen>
2488 If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
2489 site's webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression
2490 instead of ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround)
2491 or upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
2495 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nohostname">
2496 <title>My logs show many <quote>Unable to get my own hostname</quote> lines.
2499 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to get the hostname of the system
2500 its running on from the IP address of the system interface it is bound to
2501 (from the <filename>config</filename> file
2502 <emphasis>listen-address</emphasis> setting). If the system cannot supply
2503 this information, <application>Privoxy</application> logs this condition.
2506 Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is
2507 not a fatal error to <application>Privoxy</application> however, but may
2508 result in a much slower response from <application>Privoxy</application> on
2509 some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
2512 This can be caused by a problem with the local <filename>HOSTS</filename>
2513 file. If this file has been changed from the original, try reverting it to
2514 see if that helps. Make sure whatever name(s) are used for the local system,
2515 that they resolve both ways.
2519 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="inuse">
2520 <title>When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an
2521 error message <quote>port 8118 is already in use</quote> (or similar wording).
2524 Port 8118 is <application>Privoxy's</application> default TCP
2525 <quote>listening</quote> port. Typically this message would mean that there
2526 is already one instance of <application>Privoxy</application> running, and
2527 your system is actually trying to start a second
2528 <application>Privoxy</application> on the same port, which will not work.
2529 (You can have multiple instances but they must be assigned different ports.)
2530 How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need
2531 to check your installation and start-up procedures.
2535 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer">
2537 Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
2540 This is caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter. You should either
2541 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or at least upgrade to the most
2542 recent <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
2543 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
2544 Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
2548 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer2">
2550 Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy
2554 This may also be caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter,
2555 in conjunction with a web server that is misreporting a file type. Binary
2556 files are exempted from <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering
2557 (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else). Either
2558 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or go to the most recent
2559 <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
2560 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
2564 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer3">
2566 What is the <quote>demoronizer</quote> and why is it there?
2569 The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which
2570 were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary extensions
2571 to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has caused problems for pages
2572 that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a
2573 standard set of fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
2574 displayed correctly. <application>Privoxy</application> borrowed from this
2575 script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn could
2576 correct these errors on the fly.
2579 But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some
2583 If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view
2584 pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will
2585 cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <emphasis>should not be on</emphasis>.
2588 On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
2589 notice wierd characters on pages, you might want to try it.
2593 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="windowopen">
2595 Why do I keep seeing <quote>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</quote> in raw source code?
2598 <application>Privoxy</application> is attempting to disable malicious
2599 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink>
2600 in this case, with the <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal>
2601 filter. <application>Privoxy</application> cannot tell very well
2602 <quote>good</quote> code snippets from <quote>bad</quote> code snippets.
2605 If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then
2606 this is good, and likely some pop-up window was disabled. If you see this
2607 where it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source code file,
2608 then you should set an exception for this site or page such that the
2609 integrity of the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
2613 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="dnserrors">
2615 I am getting too many DNS errors like <quote>404 No Such Domain</quote>. Why
2616 can't Privoxy do this better?
2619 There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution
2620 is done by the underlying operating system -- not
2621 <application>Privoxy</application> itself. <application>Privoxy</application>
2622 merely initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports
2623 whatever the outcome was. And tries to give a coherent message if there seems
2624 to be a problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the
2625 browser itself which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g
2626 adding <quote>www.</quote> to the URL). In other cases, if
2627 <application>Privoxy</application> is being chained with another proxy, this
2628 could complicate the issue, and cause undue
2629 delays and timeouts. In the case of a <quote>socks4a</quote> proxy, the socks
2630 server handles all the DNS. <application>Privoxy</application> would just be
2631 the <quote>messenger</quote> which is reporting whatever problem occurred
2632 downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
2636 In any case, newer versions include various improvements to help
2637 <application>Privoxy</application> better handle these cases.
2641 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allcpu">
2643 At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking
2644 all CPU. Why is this?
2647 This is probably a manifestation of the <quote>100% cpu</quote> problem that
2648 occurs on pages containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines
2649 are in the raw HTML source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
2650 pattern matching in <application>Privoxy's</application> page filtering
2651 mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this becomes
2652 very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long time to complete. Until a better
2653 solution comes along, disable filtering on these pages, particularly the
2654 <literal>js-annoyances</literal> and <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal>
2659 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="slowcrawl">
2660 <title>I just installed Privoxy, and all my
2661 browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives? </title>
2663 This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide,
2664 it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent interaction of software
2665 components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors, personal
2666 firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one
2667 at a time and see if that helps.
2671 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="preventcomp">
2672 <title>Why do my filters work on some sites but not on others? </title>
2674 It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to
2675 send their content <quote>compressed</quote> in order to speed things up, and
2676 then let the browser <quote>uncompress</quote> them. &my-app; does not (yet)
2677 support compression. But we can force the web server to bend to our will ;-)
2678 So for filtering, make sure you have <ulink
2679 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>
2687 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2688 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</title>
2689 <!-- Include contacting.sgml -->
2691 <!-- end contacting -->
2694 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2695 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
2697 <!-- Include copyright.sgml -->
2703 Portions of this document are <quote>borrowed</quote> from the original
2704 <application>Junkbuster</application> (tm) FAQ, and modified as
2705 appropriate for <application>Privoxy</application>.
2708 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2709 <sect2><title>License</title>
2710 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
2712 <!-- end copyright -->
2714 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2716 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2717 <sect2><title>History</title>
2718 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
2724 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2727 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2729 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
2731 <!-- Include seealso.sgml -->
2742 Tue 09/11/01 06:38:14 PM EST: Test SGML doc by Hal Burgiss.
2744 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
2745 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
2746 Public License as published by the Free Software
2747 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
2748 your option) any later version.
2750 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
2751 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
2752 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
2753 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
2754 License for more details.
2756 The GNU General Public License should be included with
2757 this file. If not, you can view it at
2758 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
2759 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
2760 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
2763 Revision 2.24 2006/11/14 01:57:46 hal9
2764 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
2767 Revision 2.23 2006/10/21 22:19:52 hal9
2768 Two new FAQs, a rewrite or two, and some touch ups.
2770 Revision 2.22 2006/10/14 20:33:10 hal9
2771 Three new FAQ's re: templates and blocking, and various minor touch-ups/improvements.
2773 Revision 2.21 2006/10/03 14:40:51 fabiankeil
2774 Added links from the Tor faq to the
2775 configuration chapter in the User Manual.
2777 Revision 2.20 2006/09/26 10:12:37 fabiankeil
2780 Revision 2.19 2006/09/22 10:54:32 hal9
2781 Change references to 3.0.4 to 3.0.5 and minor adjustments.
2783 Revision 2.18 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
2784 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
2785 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
2787 Revision 2.17 2006/09/17 14:56:32 hal9
2788 This includes yet several more new FAQs, some improved wording, enhanced
2789 mark-up, various hyper links to wikipedia to explain key terminology to the
2790 uninitiated, etc. This is ready for release IMO pending final tagging of cvs
2791 and Privoxy version stamping.
2793 Revision 2.16 2006/09/10 15:30:46 hal9
2796 Revision 2.15 2006/09/08 23:05:07 hal9
2797 Fix broken links. Add faq on hosts files. Move most of new windows service
2798 feature to user manual and reference in faq. Various other small changes.
2800 Revision 2.14 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
2801 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
2803 Revision 2.13 2006/09/04 19:20:33 fabiankeil
2804 Adjusted anonymity related sections to match reality.
2805 Added a section about using Privoxy with Tor.
2807 Revision 2.12 2006/09/03 14:15:30 hal9
2808 Various updates, including 7 or 8 new FAQs, and updates/changes to various
2809 other ones to better reflect improvements, additions and changes for the
2810 upcoming release. This is close to final form for 3.0.4 IMHO.
2812 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:50 david__schmidt
2813 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
2814 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
2816 Revision 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes
2817 Fixed allow-all-cookies alias name; closes SR #929746
2819 Revision 1.61.2.40 2004/01/30 17:00:33 oes
2820 Added OSX Panther problem
2822 Revision 1.61.2.39 2004/01/29 22:53:08 hal9
2823 Minor changes for exempting docs of text/plain. Change copyright date.
2825 Revision 1.61.2.38 2003/12/10 03:39:45 hal9
2826 Added FAQs for: demoronizer, related problems and why its included. Also,
2827 port 8118 already in use questions, and PrivoxyWindowOpen() questions. All in
2828 troubleshooting section.
2830 Revision 1.61.2.37 2003/10/17 11:01:50 oes
2831 Added Q&A for "not being used" page problem
2833 Revision 1.61.2.36 2003/06/26 23:49:20 hal9
2834 More on the filter/source code problem.
2836 Revision 1.61.2.35 2003/06/26 13:38:08 hal9
2837 Add FAQ on whether configuring Privoxy is necessary or not.
2839 Revision 1.61.2.34 2003/06/26 03:00:03 hal9
2840 Sorry, found another copyright date.
2842 Revision 1.61.2.33 2003/06/26 02:57:05 hal9
2843 Fix typo (finally!) and very minor modifications.
2845 Revision 1.61.2.32 2003/06/26 02:52:04 hal9
2848 Revision 1.61.2.31 2003/06/25 01:27:51 hal9
2849 Fix copyright, and a few nits.
2851 Revision 1.61.2.30 2003/06/25 01:13:52 hal9
2854 - FAQ on "Unable to get my own hostname"
2855 - Another one on filtering effects on text files.
2857 Revision 1.61.2.29 2003/06/15 21:32:58 hal9
2858 Add to the 4.17 (filtering effects on downloaded files).
2860 Revision 1.61.2.28 2003/03/18 19:37:21 oes
2861 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
2863 Revision 1.61.2.27 2002/12/01 06:31:58 hal9
2864 Add faq on win32 error 503 due to ZoneAlarm.
2866 Revision 1.61.2.26 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
2867 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
2870 Revision 1.61.2.25 2002/10/29 03:21:50 hal9
2871 Add 3 Q/A's relating to HTML in email. Other minor touchups.
2873 Revision 1.61.2.24 2002/10/15 12:50:22 oes
2874 s/Advanced/Radical/ (stupid me)
2876 Revision 1.61.2.23 2002/10/15 12:38:56 oes
2877 Added Microsuck faq; more detail for PHP problem
2879 Revision 1.61.2.22 2002/10/12 01:13:13 hal9
2880 Updates for demoronizer, more commentary on Radical profile, and update on
2881 the srvany.exe/icon fix.
2883 Revision 1.61.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
2884 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
2886 Revision 1.61.2.20 2002/09/26 01:22:45 hal9
2887 Small additions for LAN setup, content-cookies/SSL, and FTP non-support.
2889 Revision 1.61.2.19 2002/08/25 23:31:56 hal9
2890 Fix one grammatical error. Add brief FAQ relating to tranparent proxies (ie
2891 port 80 setting). Add FAQ on effects of Privoxy on downloaded files
2892 (especially filtering).
2894 Revision 1.61.2.18 2002/08/14 16:39:37 hal9
2895 Fix wrong tag on FAQ addition.
2897 Revision 1.61.2.17 2002/08/14 00:01:18 hal9
2900 Revision 1.61.2.16 2002/08/13 00:10:38 hal9
2901 Add faq to troubleshooting re: blank page syndrome, ie {-prevent-compression}.
2903 Revision 1.61.2.15 2002/08/10 11:34:22 oes
2904 Add disclaimer about probably being out-of-date
2906 Revision 1.61.2.14 2002/08/07 02:53:43 hal9
2907 Fix some minor markup errors, and move one OSX Q/A to troubleshooting section.
2909 Revision 1.61.2.13 2002/08/06 11:55:32 oes
2910 Added missing close tag
2912 Revision 1.61.2.12 2002/08/06 11:43:46 david__schmidt
2913 Updated OSX uninstall FAQ... we have an uninstall script now.
2915 Revision 1.61.2.11 2002/08/06 08:54:03 oes
2916 Style police: Fixed formatting details
2918 Revision 1.61.2.10 2002/08/02 14:00:25 david__schmidt
2919 Made the OSX removal commands far less dangerous
2921 Revision 1.61.2.9 2002/08/02 13:14:45 oes
2922 Added warning about sudo rm -r for Mac OSX deinstallation; moved this item to install section
2924 Revision 1.61.2.8 2002/08/02 02:01:42 david__schmidt
2925 Add FAQ item for MSIE on OSX HTTP proxy confusion
2927 Revision 1.61.2.7 2002/08/02 01:46:01 david__schmidt
2928 Added FAQ item for Mac OSX uninstall woes
2930 Revision 1.61.2.6 2002/07/30 20:04:56 hal9
2931 Fix typo: 'schould'.
2933 Revision 1.61.2.5 2002/07/26 15:22:58 oes
2934 - Updated to reflect changes in standard.action
2935 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
2937 Revision 1.61.2.4 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
2938 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
2940 Revision 1.61.2.3 2002/06/09 16:36:33 hal9
2941 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
2943 Revision 1.61.2.2 2002/06/06 02:51:34 hal9
2944 Fix typo in URL http:/config.privoxy.org
2946 Revision 1.61.2.1 2002/06/05 23:10:43 hal9
2947 Add new FAQ re: DUN/IE. Change release date from May to June :)
2949 Revision 1.61 2002/05/25 12:37:25 hal9
2950 Various minor changes and edits.
2952 Revision 1.60 2002/05/22 17:17:48 oes
2953 Proofread & added more links into u-m
2955 Revision 1.59 2002/05/15 04:03:30 hal9
2956 Fix ulink -> link markup.
2958 Revision 1.58 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
2959 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
2960 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
2961 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
2963 Revision 1.57 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
2964 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
2966 Revision 1.56 2002/05/04 08:44:44 swa
2969 Revision 1.55 2002/05/04 00:41:56 hal9
2970 -Remove TOC/first page kludge in favor of proper handling via dsl file.
2972 Revision 1.54 2002/05/03 05:06:44 hal9
2973 Add brief Q/A on transparent proxies.
2975 Revision 1.53 2002/05/03 01:34:52 hal9
2976 Fix section numbering for new sections (due to TOC kludge).
2978 Revision 1.52 2002/04/29 03:08:43 hal9
2979 -Added new Q/A on new actions file set up (pointer to u-m)
2980 -Fixed a few broken links and converted old actions as a result of
2983 Revision 1.51 2002/04/26 17:24:31 swa
2984 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
2986 Revision 1.50 2002/04/26 05:25:23 hal9
2987 Mass commit to catch a few scattered fixes.
2989 Revision 1.49 2002/04/12 10:10:18 swa
2992 Revision 1.48 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
2995 Revision 1.47 2002/04/10 04:05:32 hal9
2998 Revision 1.45 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
2999 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
3001 Revision 1.44 2002/04/07 21:24:29 hal9
3002 Touch up on name change.
3004 Revision 1.43 2002/04/04 21:59:53 hal9
3005 Added NT/W2K service/icon situation.
3007 Revision 1.42 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
3008 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
3010 Revision 1.41 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
3011 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
3012 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
3013 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
3014 eventually be set by Makefile.
3015 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
3017 Revision 1.40 2002/04/03 04:22:03 hal9
3018 Fixed several typos.
3020 Revision 1.39 2002/04/03 03:53:03 hal9
3021 Revert some changes, and then make some news, to layout, and appearance.
3023 Revision 1.38 2002/04/02 03:49:10 hal9
3024 Major changes to doc structure and layout. Sections are not automatically
3025 numbered now. TOC is on page by itself.
3027 Revision 1.37 2002/04/01 16:24:07 hal9
3028 -Rework of supported Q/A.
3029 -Set up entities to include boilerplate text.
3031 Revision 1.36 2002/03/31 23:18:47 hal9
3032 More on dealing with BLOCKED.
3034 Revision 1.35 2002/03/30 04:14:19 hal9
3035 Fix privoxy.org/config links.
3037 Revision 1.34 2002/03/29 04:35:56 hal9
3040 Revision 1.33 2002/03/29 01:31:48 hal9
3041 Several new Q/A's and other touch ups.
3043 Revision 1.32 2002/03/27 00:57:03 hal9
3044 Touch ups for name change.
3046 Revision 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
3047 we have a new homepage!
3049 Revision 1.30 2002/03/25 16:39:22 hal9
3050 A few new sections. Made all links relative to user-manual.
3052 Revision 1.29 2002/03/25 05:23:57 hal9
3053 Moved section, and touch ups.
3055 Revision 1.28 2002/03/25 04:27:33 hal9
3056 New section related to name change.
3058 Revision 1.25 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
3059 we are too lazy to make a block-built
3060 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
3062 Revision 1.24 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
3063 name change related issue.
3065 Revision 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa
3068 Revision 1.22 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
3069 name change. changed filenames.
3071 Revision 1.21 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
3074 Revision 1.20 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
3075 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
3076 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
3077 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
3078 comments and remarks to history untouched.
3080 Revision 1.19 2002/03/21 17:01:54 hal9
3083 Revision 1.18 2002/03/18 16:40:31 hal9
3086 Revision 1.17 2002/03/18 03:53:53 hal9
3089 Revision 1.16 2002/03/17 21:32:56 hal9
3090 A few more additions.
3092 Revision 1.15 2002/03/17 07:25:59 hal9
3093 Correcting some of my typos, and some additions.
3095 Revision 1.14 2002/03/17 02:39:13 hal9
3096 A little more added ...
3098 Revision 1.13 2002/03/17 00:22:20 hal9
3099 Adding new stuff, and trying to incorporate stuff from old faq.
3101 Revision 1.12 2002/03/11 20:13:21 swa
3104 Revision 1.11 2002/03/11 18:42:27 swa
3107 Revision 1.10 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
3108 correct feedback channels
3110 Revision 1.9 2002/03/10 23:34:04 swa
3111 more info on not hiding ip address
3113 Revision 1.8 2002/03/09 15:55:48 swa
3114 added default config section
3116 Revision 1.7 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
3119 Revision 1.6 2002/03/07 13:16:31 oes
3120 Committing changes by Stefan
3122 Revision 1.5 2002/03/02 15:50:04 swa
3123 2.9.11 version. more input for docs.
3125 Revision 1.4 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
3126 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
3127 will work - no other changes are needed.
3129 Revision 1.3 2001/09/23 10:13:48 swa
3130 upload process established. run make webserver and
3131 the documentation is moved to the webserver. documents
3132 are now linked correctly.
3134 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:20:17 swa
3135 merged standards into developer manual
3137 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
3138 source files for junkbuster documentation
3140 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
3141 first proposal of a structure.
3143 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
3144 docs should have an author.
3146 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
3147 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob