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 buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity GPLv2 SYSTEM "../../LICENSE">
13 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
14 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
15 <!entity changelog SYSTEM "changelog.sgml">
16 <!entity p-version "3.0.25">
17 <!entity p-status "beta">
18 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
19 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
20 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
21 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
22 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
23 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
25 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
26 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
27 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
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30 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
33 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
36 This file belongs into
37 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
39 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.212 2016/05/25 10:50:55 fabiankeil Exp $
41 Copyright (C) 2001-2016 Privoxy Developers https://www.privoxy.org/
44 ========================================================================
45 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
46 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
47 ========================================================================
54 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
58 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
59 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
60 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2016 by
61 <ulink url="https://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
65 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.212 2016/05/25 10:50:55 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
69 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
70 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
71 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
72 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
85 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
86 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
87 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
93 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
94 install, configure and use <ulink
95 url="https://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
98 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
100 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
103 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
104 url="https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
105 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
106 contact the developers.
113 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
114 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
116 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
117 <application>Privoxy</application>, &p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
118 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
119 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
120 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
121 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to the core
139 features of ad blocking and
140 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
141 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
142 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
143 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
145 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
152 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
156 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
159 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
160 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
161 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
162 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
168 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
169 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
170 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
171 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
183 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
185 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
186 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
191 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
192 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
195 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
196 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
197 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
200 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
201 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
202 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
203 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
207 <term>Arguments:</term>
210 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
213 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
219 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
220 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
221 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
222 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
223 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
224 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
225 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
226 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
227 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
228 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
229 write to its log and configuration files.
234 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
235 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
238 First, make sure that no previous installations of
239 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
240 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
241 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
242 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
248 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
249 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
250 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
251 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
255 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
256 into will contain all of the configuration files.
260 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
261 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
263 Installation instructions for the OS X platform depend upon whether
264 you downloaded a ready-built installation package (.pkg or .mpkg) or have
265 downloaded the source code.
268 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="OS-X-install-from-package">
269 <title>Installation from ready-built package</title>
271 The downloaded file will either be a .pkg (for OS X 10.5 upwards) or a bzipped
272 .mpkg file (for OS X 10.4). The former can be double-clicked as is and the
273 installation will start; double-clicking the latter will unzip the .mpkg file
274 which can then be double-clicked to commence the installation.
277 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
278 (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
279 configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
280 proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
283 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
284 starts up, remove or rename the file <literal>/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist</literal>
285 (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
286 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal> (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
289 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the scripts startPrivoxy.sh
290 and stopPrivoxy.sh supplied in /Applications/Privoxy. They must be run from an
291 administrator account, using sudo.
294 To uninstall, run /Applications/Privoxy/uninstall.command as sudo from an
295 administrator account.
298 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="OS-X-install-from-source">
299 <title>Installation from source</title>
301 To build and install the Privoxy source code on OS X you will need to obtain
302 the macsetup module from the Privoxy Sourceforge CVS repository (refer to
303 Sourceforge help for details of how to set up a CVS client to have read-only
304 access to the repository). This module contains scripts that leverage the usual
305 open-source tools (available as part of Apple's free of charge Xcode
306 distribution or via the usual open-source software package managers for OS X
307 (MacPorts, Homebrew, Fink etc.) to build and then install the privoxy binary
308 and associated files. The macsetup module's README file contains complete
309 instructions for its use.
312 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
313 (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
314 configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
315 proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
318 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
319 starts up, remove or rename the file <literal>/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist</literal>
320 (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
321 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal> (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
324 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
325 for Mac OS X (also part of the macsetup module). This application can start
326 and stop the privoxy service and display its log and configuration files.
329 To uninstall, run the macsetup module's uninstall.sh as sudo from an
330 administrator account.
334 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
335 <sect3 id="installation-freebsd"><title>FreeBSD</title>
338 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
339 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
345 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
346 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
349 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
350 is to download the source tarball from our
351 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/files/Sources/">project download
356 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
357 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
358 version directly from <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/p/ijbswa/code/?source=navbar">the
359 CVS repository</ulink>.
361 deprecated...out of business.
362 or simply download <ulink
363 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
368 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
370 <!-- end boilerplate -->
373 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
374 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
377 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
378 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
379 url="https://lists.privoxy.org/mailman/listinfo/privoxy-announce">subscribe
380 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, privoxy-announce@lists.privoxy.org.
384 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
385 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
386 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
387 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
388 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
389 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
397 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
399 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
400 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
401 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
405 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
407 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
408 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
411 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
412 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
420 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
421 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
422 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
423 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
426 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
427 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
428 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
429 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
430 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
435 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
436 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
437 any important configuration files!
442 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
443 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
448 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
449 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
450 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
451 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
458 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
459 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
460 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
461 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
462 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
463 be aware of the security issues involved.
470 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
471 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
472 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
473 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
474 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
475 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
476 settings as yet (see above).
483 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
484 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
485 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
486 standards and past practices. See <ulink
487 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
488 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
489 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
495 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
496 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
497 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
498 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
502 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
506 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
507 to turn off compression for all sites in
508 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
509 <filename>user.action</filename>).
516 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
517 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
518 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
525 Some installers may not automatically start
526 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
537 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
538 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
544 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
545 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
552 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
553 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
554 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
555 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
562 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
563 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
564 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
570 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
571 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
572 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
573 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
574 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
575 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
576 browser from using these protocols.
582 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
583 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
584 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
585 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
591 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
592 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
593 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
594 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
596 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
597 Be sure to read the warnings first.
600 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
601 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
602 You might also want to look at the <link
603 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
604 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
611 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
612 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
613 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
614 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
615 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
616 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
617 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
618 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
619 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
620 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
626 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
627 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
634 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
642 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
644 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
645 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
647 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
648 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
651 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
652 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
653 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
656 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
657 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
658 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
661 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
662 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
663 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
664 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
665 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
666 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
667 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
668 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
669 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
670 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
671 habits and preferences.
674 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
675 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
676 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
677 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
678 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
679 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
680 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
681 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
682 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
683 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
686 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
687 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
688 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
689 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
690 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
693 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
694 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
695 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
696 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
697 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
698 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
699 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
700 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
701 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
702 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
703 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
708 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
709 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
710 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
712 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
713 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
721 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
722 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
723 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
724 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
725 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
726 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
727 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
728 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
734 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
735 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
736 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
737 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
738 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
739 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
740 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
741 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
742 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
743 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
744 an entire HTML page in most situations.
750 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
751 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
752 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
753 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
760 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
761 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
762 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
763 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
764 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
765 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
768 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
772 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
773 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
778 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
779 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
784 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
785 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
794 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
795 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
796 are very different from <literal><link
797 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
798 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
799 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
800 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
801 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
802 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
803 some pitfalls to be wary off.
807 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
808 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
809 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
810 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
811 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
815 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
816 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
817 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
818 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
819 cases it's safe to enable again.
823 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
824 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
825 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
826 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
827 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
828 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
829 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
830 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
834 A quick and simple step by step example:
842 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
843 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
851 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
856 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
857 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
860 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
862 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
865 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
868 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
877 You should have a section with only
878 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
879 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
880 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
881 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
882 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
883 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
884 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
885 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
891 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
892 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
893 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
894 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
895 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
896 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
901 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
902 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
910 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
911 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
912 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
913 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
918 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
919 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
920 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
923 There are also various
924 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
925 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
926 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
927 depth in later sections.
934 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
937 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
939 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
941 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
942 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
943 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
944 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
945 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
946 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
950 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
951 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
954 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
956 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
957 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
960 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
963 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
971 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
975 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
980 Or optionally on some platforms:
984 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
990 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
991 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
996 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
997 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
998 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1003 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1007 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1011 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1012 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1013 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1014 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1015 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1018 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1020 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1021 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1024 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1027 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1035 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1036 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1037 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1038 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1039 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1040 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1044 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1045 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1046 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1047 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1048 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1051 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1052 <title>Debian</title>
1054 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1055 default. It will use the file
1056 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1061 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1066 <sect2 id="start-freebsd">
1067 <title>FreeBSD and ElectroBSD</title>
1069 To start <application>Privoxy</application> upon booting, add
1070 "privoxy_enable='YES'" to <filename>/etc/rc.conf</filename>.
1071 <application>Privoxy</application> will use
1072 <filename>/usr/local/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main
1076 If you installed <application>Privoxy</application> into a jail, the
1077 paths above are relative to the jail root.
1080 To start <application>Privoxy</application> manually, run:
1084 # service privoxy onestart
1089 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1090 <title>Windows</title>
1092 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1093 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1094 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1095 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1099 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1100 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1101 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1102 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1103 instructions</link> for details.
1107 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1108 <title>Generic instructions for Unix derivates (Solaris, NetBSD, HP-UX etc.)</title>
1110 Example Unix startup command:
1114 # /usr/sbin/privoxy --user privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1118 Note that if you installed <application>Privoxy</application> through
1119 a package manager, the package will probably contain a platform-specific
1120 script or configuration file to start <application>Privoxy</application>
1125 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1128 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1129 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1130 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1131 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1135 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1136 <title>Mac OS X</title>
1138 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
1139 (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
1140 configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
1141 proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
1144 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
1145 starts up, remove or rename the file <literal>/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist</literal>
1146 (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
1147 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal> (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
1150 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the scripts startPrivoxy.sh
1151 and stopPrivoxy.sh supplied in /Applications/Privoxy. They must be run from an
1152 administrator account, using sudo.
1160 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1164 must find a better place for this paragraph
1167 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1168 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1169 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1170 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1171 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1172 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1176 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1177 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1178 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1179 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1180 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1181 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1182 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1183 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1184 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1188 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1189 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
1190 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
1191 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1192 popups (explained below).
1196 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1197 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1198 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1199 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1200 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1201 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1202 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1203 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1204 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1208 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1209 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1210 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1211 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1212 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1213 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1214 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1215 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1216 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1220 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1221 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1222 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1223 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1224 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1225 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1226 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1230 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1231 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1232 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1233 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1234 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1235 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1240 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1241 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1242 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1247 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1248 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1249 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1250 Developers</quote></link> below.
1255 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1256 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1257 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1259 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1260 command-line options:
1268 <emphasis>--config-test</emphasis>
1271 Exit after loading the configuration files before binding to
1272 the listen address. The exit code signals whether or not the
1273 configuration files have been successfully loaded.
1276 If the exit code is 1, at least one of the configuration files
1277 is invalid, if it is 0, all the configuration files have been
1278 successfully loaded (but may still contain errors that can
1279 currently only be detected at run time).
1282 This option doesn't affect the log setting, combination with
1283 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis> is recommended if a configured
1284 log file shouldn't be used.
1289 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1292 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1297 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1300 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1305 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1308 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1309 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1314 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1317 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1318 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1319 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1320 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1325 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1328 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1329 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1330 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1335 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1338 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1339 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1340 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1341 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1347 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1350 Specifies a hostname (for example www.privoxy.org) to look up before doing a chroot.
1351 On some systems, initializing the resolver library involves reading config files from
1352 /etc and/or loading additional shared libraries from /lib.
1353 On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1354 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1357 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1358 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1359 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1360 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1366 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1369 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1370 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1371 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1372 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1373 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1374 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1382 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1383 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1384 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1385 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1393 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1396 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1397 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1399 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1400 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1401 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1402 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1406 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1408 <sect2 id="control-with-webbrowser">
1409 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1411 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1412 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1413 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1414 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1415 You will see the following section:
1419 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1422 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1426 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1429 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1432 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1435 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1438 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1441 ▪ <ulink
1442 url="https://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1450 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1451 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1452 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1453 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1454 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1455 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1459 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1460 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1461 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1462 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1463 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1464 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy.
1468 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1469 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1471 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1472 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1477 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1482 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1484 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1485 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1487 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1488 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1489 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1490 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1491 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1492 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1496 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1497 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1498 principle configuration files are:
1506 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1507 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1508 on Windows. This is a required file.
1514 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
1515 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
1516 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
1519 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
1520 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
1521 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
1524 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1525 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1526 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1527 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1528 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
1529 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
1530 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
1533 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1535 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1537 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1538 various actions files.
1544 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1545 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1546 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1547 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1548 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1549 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1550 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1551 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1552 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1553 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1554 locally defined filters or customizations.
1562 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
1563 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
1564 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
1568 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1569 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1570 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1571 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1572 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1573 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1574 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1578 The actions files and filter files
1579 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1580 maximum flexibility.
1584 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1585 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1586 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1587 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1588 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1589 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1590 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1595 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1596 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1597 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1598 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1604 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1607 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1609 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1610 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1611 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1613 <!-- end include -->
1616 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1620 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1622 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1626 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
1627 We should only describe them at one place.
1630 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
1631 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
1632 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1633 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
1634 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
1635 Each action does something a little different.
1636 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
1637 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
1638 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
1642 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
1649 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
1650 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1651 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
1652 It should be the first actions file loaded
1657 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
1658 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
1659 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
1660 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
1661 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
1666 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1667 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1668 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1669 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1674 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
1677 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
1678 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
1679 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
1680 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
1681 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
1682 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
1683 not working as they should.
1686 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
1687 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
1688 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
1689 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
1690 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
1691 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
1692 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
1693 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
1694 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
1695 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
1696 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
1697 lower sections of this internal page.
1700 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
1701 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
1702 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
1705 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1706 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
1709 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1710 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1711 <colspec colname=c1>
1712 <colspec colname=c2>
1713 <colspec colname=c3>
1714 <colspec colname=c4>
1717 <entry>Feature</entry>
1718 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1719 <entry>Medium</entry>
1720 <entry>Advanced</entry>
1725 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1726 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1727 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1728 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1734 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
1735 <entry>medium</entry>
1741 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1748 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1754 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1755 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1756 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1757 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1761 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
1763 <entry>medium</entry>
1764 <entry>medium/high</entry>
1768 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1770 <entry>session-only</entry>
1775 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1782 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1789 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1796 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1803 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1810 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1817 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1833 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1834 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1835 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
1836 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1838 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1839 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
1840 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
1841 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
1842 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
1843 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
1844 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
1845 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
1849 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1850 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1851 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1852 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1853 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1854 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1855 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1856 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1857 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1858 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1859 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1860 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1864 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1865 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1866 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1867 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1868 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1872 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1873 <sect2 id="right-mix">
1874 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1876 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1877 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1878 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1879 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
1880 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
1881 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1882 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1883 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1884 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1885 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
1886 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1890 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1891 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1892 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1893 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1897 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1898 <sect2 id="how-to-edit">
1899 <title>How to Edit</title>
1901 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1902 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1903 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1904 Note: the config file option <link
1905 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
1906 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
1907 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
1908 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
1909 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
1910 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
1911 Experienced users only!
1915 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1916 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
1917 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
1923 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1924 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
1926 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1927 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1928 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1929 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1930 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1931 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
1935 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1936 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
1937 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
1938 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
1939 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
1943 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
1944 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
1945 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
1946 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
1947 then later another one with just <literal>{
1948 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
1949 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
1950 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
1956 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
1957 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
1959 media.example.com/.*banners
1960 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
1964 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
1965 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1969 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1970 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
1974 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1975 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1976 <title>Patterns</title>
1978 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
1979 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
1980 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
1981 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
1982 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
1983 against many similar patterns.
1987 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
1988 <literal><host><port>/<path></literal>, where the
1989 <literal><host></literal>, the <literal><port></literal>
1990 and the <literal><path></literal> are optional. (This is why the special
1991 <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
1992 portion of the URL pattern (e.g. <literal>http://</literal>) should
1993 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
1996 The pattern matching syntax is different for the host and path parts of
1997 the URL. The host part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
1998 while the path part uses more flexible
1999 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2000 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
2003 The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
2004 (<literal>:</literal>). If the host part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
2005 it has to be put into angle brackets
2006 (<literal><</literal>, <literal>></literal>).
2011 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2014 is a host-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2015 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2016 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2017 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2022 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2025 means exactly the same. For host-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2031 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2034 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2035 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2040 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2043 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2044 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2049 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2052 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2053 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2058 <term><literal>/</literal></term>
2061 Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
2062 domain or the path to match anything.
2067 <term><literal>:8000/</literal></term>
2070 Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000.
2075 <term><literal>10.0.0.1/</literal></term>
2078 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>10.0.0.1</literal>.
2079 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
2084 <term><literal><2001:db8::1>/</literal></term>
2087 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>2001:db8::1</literal>.
2088 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
2093 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2096 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2097 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2105 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2106 <sect3 id="host-pattern"><title>The Host Pattern</title>
2109 The matching of the host part offers some flexible options: if the
2110 host pattern starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2111 The host pattern is often referred to as domain pattern as it is usually
2112 used to match domain names and not IP addresses.
2118 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2121 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2122 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2123 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2124 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2125 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2130 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2133 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2134 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2135 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2140 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2143 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2144 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2145 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2146 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2147 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2148 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2149 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2157 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2158 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2159 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2161 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2162 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2163 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2164 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2165 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2166 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2171 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2174 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2175 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2180 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2183 matches all of the above, and then some.
2188 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2191 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2192 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2197 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2200 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2201 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2202 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2203 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2210 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2215 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2218 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2219 <sect3 id="path-pattern"><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2222 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
2223 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2224 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
2225 and is thus more flexible.
2229 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2230 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
2231 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
2235 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2236 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2237 for the beginning of a line).
2241 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2242 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2243 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2244 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2245 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2250 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2253 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2254 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2255 regular expression. This is redundant
2260 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2263 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2264 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2265 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2266 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2267 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2268 requirement. It also would match
2269 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2270 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2275 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2278 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2279 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2280 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2281 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2286 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2289 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2290 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2291 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2292 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2297 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2300 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2301 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2302 one is limited to common image formats.
2309 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2310 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2315 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2318 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2319 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Request Tag Pattern</title>
2322 Request tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2323 request's tags. Tags can be created based on HTTP headers with either
2324 the <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2325 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2329 Request tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2330 can tell them apart from other patterns. Everything after the colon
2331 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2332 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2333 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2334 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2338 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2339 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2340 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2341 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2342 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2346 Sections can contain URL and request tag patterns at the same time,
2347 but request tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2348 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2352 Once a new request tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2353 of the request tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2354 request tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2355 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2359 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2360 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2361 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2362 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2363 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2364 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2365 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2366 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2367 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2371 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2372 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2373 make too much sense.
2378 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2379 <sect3 id="negative-tag-patterns"><title>The Negative Request Tag Patterns</title>
2382 To match requests that do not have a certain request tag, specify a negative tag pattern
2383 by prefixing the tag pattern line with either <quote>NO-REQUEST-TAG:</quote>
2384 or <quote>NO-RESPONSE-TAG:</quote> instead of <quote>TAG:</quote>.
2388 Negative request tag patterns created with <quote>NO-REQUEST-TAG:</quote> are checked
2389 after all client headers are scanned, the ones created with <quote>NO-RESPONSE-TAG:</quote>
2390 are checked after all server headers are scanned. In both cases all the created
2391 tags are considered.
2394 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2395 <sect3 id="client-tag-pattern"><title>The Client Tag Pattern</title>
2397 <!-- XXX: This section contains duplicates content from the
2398 client-specific-tag documentation. -->
2402 This is an experimental feature. The syntax is likely to change in future versions.
2407 Client tag patterns are not set based on HTTP headers but based on
2408 the client's IP address. Users can enable them themselves, but the
2409 Privoxy admin controls which tags are available and what their effect
2414 After a client-specific tag has been defined with the
2415 <link linkend="client-specific-tag">client-specific-tag</link>,
2416 directive, action sections can be activated based on the tag by using a
2417 CLIENT-TAG pattern. The CLIENT-TAG pattern is evaluated at the same priority
2418 as URL patterns, as a result the last matching pattern wins. Tags that
2419 are created based on client or server headers are evaluated later on
2420 and can overrule CLIENT-TAG and URL patterns!
2423 The tag is set for all requests that come from clients that requested
2424 it to be set. Note that "clients" are differentiated by IP address,
2425 if the IP address changes the tag has to be requested again.
2428 Clients can request tags to be set by using the CGI interface <ulink
2429 url="http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags">http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags</ulink>.
2438 # If the admin defined the client-specific-tag circumvent-blocks,
2439 # and the request comes from a client that previously requested
2440 # the tag to be set, overrule all previous +block actions that
2441 # are enabled based on URL to CLIENT-TAG patterns.
2443 CLIENT-TAG:^circumvent-blocks$
2445 # This section is not overruled because it's located after
2447 {+block{Nobody is supposed to request this.}}
2448 example.org/blocked-example-page</screen>
2453 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2456 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2458 <sect2 id="actions">
2459 <title>Actions</title>
2461 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2462 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2463 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2464 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2465 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2466 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2467 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2468 previously applied.</quote>
2473 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2474 separated by whitespace, like in
2475 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2476 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2477 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2478 of the actions file.
2482 Actions fall into three categories:
2489 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2490 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2494 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2495 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2498 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
2505 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2510 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2511 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2512 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2515 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2516 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2519 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
2525 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2526 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2527 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2528 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2529 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2530 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2534 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2535 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2536 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2537 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2540 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2541 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2549 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2550 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2551 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2552 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2553 files will give a good starting point).
2557 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2558 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2559 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2560 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2561 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2562 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2563 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2564 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2565 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2569 <!-- start actions listing -->
2571 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2575 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2576 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2577 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2579 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2582 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2584 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2585 <title>add-header</title>
2589 <term>Typical use:</term>
2591 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2596 <term>Effect:</term>
2599 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2606 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2608 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2613 <term>Parameter:</term>
2616 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2617 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2627 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2628 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2629 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2633 Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions.
2639 <term>Example usage:</term>
2642 <screen># Add a DNT ("Do not track") header to all requests,
2643 # event to those that already have one.
2645 # This is just an example, not a recommendation.
2647 # There is no reason to believe that user-tracking websites care
2648 # about the DNT header and depending on the User-Agent, adding the
2649 # header may make user-tracking easier.
2650 {+add-header{DNT: 1}}
2659 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2660 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2661 <title>block</title>
2665 <term>Typical use:</term>
2667 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2672 <term>Effect:</term>
2675 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2676 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2677 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2679 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2681 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2683 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2691 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2693 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2698 <term>Parameter:</term>
2700 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
2708 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2709 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
2710 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
2711 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
2715 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2716 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2717 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2718 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2719 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2720 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2723 It is important to understand this process, in order
2724 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2725 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
2726 upon which various other features depend.
2729 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2730 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2731 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2732 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2733 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2739 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2742 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
2743 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2744 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2746 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
2747 # Block and replace with image
2751 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
2752 # Block and then ignore
2753 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
2763 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2764 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
2765 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
2769 <term>Typical use:</term>
2771 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
2776 <term>Effect:</term>
2779 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
2787 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2789 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2794 <term>Parameter:</term>
2798 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
2802 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
2803 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
2814 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
2817 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
2818 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
2823 <term>Example usage:</term>
2826 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
2833 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2834 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
2835 <title>client-header-filter</title>
2839 <term>Typical use:</term>
2842 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
2848 <term>Effect:</term>
2851 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2852 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
2859 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2861 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2866 <term>Parameter:</term>
2869 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
2870 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2879 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
2880 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
2881 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
2882 You can do that by using tags though.
2885 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
2886 and use their output as input.
2889 If the request URI gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
2890 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
2891 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
2894 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
2895 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
2903 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2907 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
2908 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
2919 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2920 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
2921 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
2925 <term>Typical use:</term>
2928 Block requests based on their headers.
2934 <term>Effect:</term>
2937 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2938 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
2946 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2948 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2953 <term>Parameter:</term>
2956 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
2957 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2966 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
2967 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
2971 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
2972 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
2978 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2982 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
2983 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
2986 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
2987 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
2989 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
2990 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
2991 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
2992 -hide-if-modified-since \
2993 -overwrite-last-modified \
2998 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
2999 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
3000 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
3001 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
3002 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
3003 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
3008 # Tag all requests with the Range header set
3009 {+client-header-tagger{range-requests}}
3012 # Disable filtering for the tagged requests.
3014 # With filtering enabled Privoxy would remove the Range headers
3015 # to be able to filter the whole response. The downside is that
3016 # it prevents clients from resuming downloads or skipping over
3017 # parts of multimedia files.
3018 {-filter -deanimate-gifs}
3029 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3030 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3031 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3035 <term>Typical use:</term>
3037 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3042 <term>Effect:</term>
3045 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3052 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3054 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3059 <term>Parameter:</term>
3071 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3072 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3073 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3074 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3075 supported by the browser.
3078 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3079 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3080 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3081 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3082 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3085 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3086 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3087 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3088 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3089 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3092 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3093 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3094 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3095 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3098 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3099 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3100 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3101 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3102 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3105 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3106 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3107 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3108 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3111 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3112 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3113 more work to get the same precision.
3119 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3122 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3123 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3126 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3127 {-content-type-overwrite}
3128 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3129 www.example.net/.*style
3138 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3139 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3143 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3147 <term>Typical use:</term>
3149 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3154 <term>Effect:</term>
3157 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3164 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3166 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3171 <term>Parameter:</term>
3183 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3184 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3185 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3186 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3189 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3190 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3191 they contain the same string.
3194 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3195 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3196 parts of them, you should use a
3197 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3201 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3208 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3211 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3212 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3223 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3224 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3230 <term>Typical use:</term>
3232 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3237 <term>Effect:</term>
3240 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3247 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3249 <para>Boolean.</para>
3254 <term>Parameter:</term>
3266 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3267 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3268 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3269 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3272 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3273 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3276 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3277 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3278 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3281 It is recommended to use this action together with
3282 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3284 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3290 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3293 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3294 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3295 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3296 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3297 +crunch-if-none-match}
3306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3307 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3308 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3312 <term>Typical use:</term>
3315 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3321 <term>Effect:</term>
3324 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3331 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3333 <para>Boolean.</para>
3338 <term>Parameter:</term>
3350 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3351 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3352 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3353 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3356 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3357 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3358 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3359 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3365 <term>Example usage:</term>
3368 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3376 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3377 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3378 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3384 <term>Typical use:</term>
3386 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3391 <term>Effect:</term>
3394 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3401 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3403 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3408 <term>Parameter:</term>
3420 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3421 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3422 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3425 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3426 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3427 they contain the same string.
3430 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3431 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3432 parts of them, you should use a custom
3433 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3437 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3444 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3447 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3448 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3457 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3458 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3459 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3463 <term>Typical use:</term>
3466 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3472 <term>Effect:</term>
3475 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3482 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3484 <para>Boolean.</para>
3489 <term>Parameter:</term>
3501 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3502 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3503 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3504 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3507 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3508 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3509 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3515 <term>Example usage:</term>
3518 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3527 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3528 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3529 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3533 <term>Typical use:</term>
3535 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3540 <term>Effect:</term>
3543 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3550 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3552 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3557 <term>Parameter:</term>
3560 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3569 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3570 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3571 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3572 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3573 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3574 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3577 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3578 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3585 <term>Example usage:</term>
3588 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3595 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3596 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3597 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3601 <term>Typical use:</term>
3603 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3608 <term>Effect:</term>
3611 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3618 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3620 <para>Boolean.</para>
3625 <term>Parameter:</term>
3637 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3638 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3639 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1-related problems with some server
3643 Note that enabling this action is only a workaround. It should not
3644 be enabled for sites that work without it. While it shouldn't break
3645 any pages, it has an (usually negative) performance impact.
3648 If you come across a site where enabling this action helps, please report it,
3649 so the cause of the problem can be analyzed. If the problem turns out to be
3650 caused by a bug in <application>Privoxy</application> it should be
3651 fixed so the following release works without the work around.
projects / privoxy.git / blob