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6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
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10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
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19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
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24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
29 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
32 This file belongs into
33 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
35 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.127 2002/06/09 16:37:31 hal9 Exp $
37 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
40 ========================================================================
41 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
42 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
43 ========================================================================
50 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
54 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
55 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
56 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001, 2002 by
57 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
61 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.127 2002/06/09 16:37:31 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
65 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
66 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
67 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
68 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
75 <holder>Privoxy Developers</holder>
78 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
80 text goes here ........
92 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
93 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
94 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
100 The <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
101 install, configure and use <ulink
102 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
105 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
107 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
110 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
111 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
112 Please see the <ulink url="contact.html">Contact section</ulink> on how to
113 contact the developers.
117 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
123 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
124 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
126 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
127 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
128 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
129 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
130 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
131 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
132 earlier versions. The target release date for
133 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
136 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
139 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
140 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
141 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
146 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
147 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
149 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
150 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
151 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
152 some of them currently under development]]>:
154 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
156 <!-- end boilerplate -->
161 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
164 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
165 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
168 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
169 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
170 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
171 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
176 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
177 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
178 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
179 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
180 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
181 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
182 upgraders</link> section below.
185 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
186 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
188 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
191 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
192 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs</title>
195 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
196 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
197 of configuration files.
201 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
202 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
203 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
204 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
205 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
209 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
210 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
211 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
215 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
216 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
217 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
218 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
223 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
225 DEBs can be installed with <literal>dpkg -i
226 privoxy_&p-version;-1.deb</literal>, and will use
227 <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of configuration
232 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
233 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
236 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
237 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
238 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not
239 use the registry of Windows.
243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
244 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
247 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
248 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
249 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
253 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
254 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
257 First, make sure that no previous installations of
258 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
259 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
260 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
261 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
267 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
268 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
269 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
270 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
274 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
275 into will contain all of the configuration files.
279 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
280 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
282 Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file
283 in the finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then,
284 double-click on the package installer icon and follow the installation
286 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the subdirectory
287 <literal>/Applications/Privoxy.app</literal>.
288 <application>Privoxy</application> will set itself up to start
289 automatically on system bring-up via
290 <literal>/System/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
294 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
295 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
297 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
298 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
299 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
300 remove this directory.
305 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
306 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
309 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
310 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
315 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
316 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
317 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
318 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
319 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
323 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
325 <!-- end boilerplate -->
331 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
334 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
335 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
337 There are very significant changes from earlier
338 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
339 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
340 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
341 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
342 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
343 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
344 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
345 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
346 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
347 files</quote></link>.
348 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
349 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
352 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
353 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
354 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
355 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
358 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
359 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
360 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
361 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
362 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
363 recommended to use the new configuration files.
366 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
374 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
380 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
381 important configuration files!
386 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
387 at the special URL: <ulink
388 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
389 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
390 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
391 <application>Privoxy</application>.
396 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
397 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
398 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
399 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
400 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
401 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
406 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
407 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
408 Some installers may not automatically start
409 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
417 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
418 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
424 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
425 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
431 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
432 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
439 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
440 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
441 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
442 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
449 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
450 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
451 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
457 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
458 HTTPS proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
459 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
460 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
461 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
462 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
463 for more details on this.
469 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
475 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
476 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
477 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
478 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
481 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
482 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
483 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
484 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
485 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
492 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
493 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
494 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
495 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
496 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
497 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
498 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
499 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
500 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
501 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
507 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
508 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
515 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
523 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
525 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
526 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
528 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
529 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
532 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
533 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
534 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
537 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
538 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
539 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
542 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
543 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
544 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
545 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
546 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
547 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
548 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
549 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
550 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
551 habits and preferences.
554 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
555 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
556 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
557 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
558 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
559 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
560 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
561 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
562 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
563 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
566 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
567 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
568 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
569 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
570 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
573 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
574 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
575 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
576 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
577 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
578 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
579 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
580 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
581 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
586 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <literal><link
587 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
588 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>, and
589 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
597 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this action stops
598 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
599 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
600 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
601 communication with the remote server and sends <application>Privoxy</application>'s
602 own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened.
608 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
609 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
610 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
611 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
612 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
613 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
614 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
615 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
616 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
617 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
618 an entire HTML page in most situations.
625 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
626 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
627 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
628 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
629 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
630 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
633 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
637 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
638 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
643 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
644 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
649 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
650 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
659 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
660 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
661 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
662 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
663 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
664 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
665 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
666 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
667 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
668 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
669 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
670 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
674 A quick and simple step by step example:
682 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
683 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
691 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
696 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
697 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
700 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
702 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
705 <imagedata fileref="../images/files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
708 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
717 You should have a section with only
718 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
719 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
720 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
721 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
722 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
723 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
724 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
725 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
731 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
732 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
733 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
734 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
735 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
736 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
741 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
742 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
750 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
751 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
752 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
753 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
758 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
759 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
760 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
767 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
770 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
772 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
774 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
775 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
776 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
777 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
778 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
781 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
782 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
785 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
787 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration (Mozilla)</title>
790 <imagedata fileref="../images/proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
793 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
800 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
801 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
805 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
806 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
807 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton>
809 <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton>
811 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton>
813 <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton>
815 <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
819 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>:
823 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
824 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
825 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton>
827 <guibutton>Internet Properties</guibutton>
829 <guibutton>Connections</guibutton>
831 <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
835 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
836 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
841 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
842 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
843 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
844 <application>Privoxy</application>!
848 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
849 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
850 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
851 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
852 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
855 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
856 <title>Red Hat and Conectiva</title>
858 We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
859 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as
860 its main configuration file.
864 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
869 <sect2 id="start-debian">
870 <title>Debian</title>
872 We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per
873 default. It will use the file
874 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
879 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
884 <sect2 id="start-suse">
887 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
888 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
898 <sect2 id="start-windows">
899 <title>Windows</title>
901 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
902 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
903 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
904 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
908 <sect2 id="start-unices">
909 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
911 Example Unix startup command:
915 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
920 <sect2 id="start-os2">
923 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
924 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
925 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
926 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
930 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
931 <title>MAX OSX</title>
933 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
934 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually
935 through the Terminal with these commands:
939 cd /Applications/Privoxy.app
945 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
946 <title>AmigaOS</title>
948 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
949 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
950 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
951 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
952 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
953 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
954 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
961 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
965 must find a better place for this paragraph
968 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
969 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
970 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
971 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
972 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
973 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
977 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
978 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
979 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
980 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
981 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
982 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
983 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
984 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
985 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
989 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
990 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
991 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
993 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
994 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
995 popups (explained below).
999 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
1000 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
1001 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1002 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1003 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1004 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1005 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1006 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1007 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1011 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1012 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1013 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1014 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1015 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1016 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1017 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1018 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1019 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1023 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1024 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1025 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1026 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1027 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1028 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1029 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1033 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1034 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1035 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1036 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1037 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1038 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1043 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
1044 url="actions-file.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
1045 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
1050 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1051 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1052 section <ulink url="contact.html"><quote>Contacting the
1053 Developers</quote></ulink> below.
1058 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1059 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1060 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1062 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1063 command-line options:
1071 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1074 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1079 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1082 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1087 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1090 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1091 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1096 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1100 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1101 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1102 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1103 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1108 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1112 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1113 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1114 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1119 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1122 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1123 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1124 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1125 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1126 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1127 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1138 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1141 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1142 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
1144 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1145 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1146 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1147 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1151 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1154 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
1156 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1157 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1158 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1159 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1160 You will see the following section:
1164 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1167 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1171 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1174 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1177 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1180 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1183 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1191 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1192 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1193 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1194 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1195 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1196 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1200 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1201 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1202 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1203 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1204 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1205 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1206 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1207 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1213 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1218 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1220 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1221 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1223 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1224 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1225 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1226 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1227 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1228 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1232 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1233 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1234 principle configuration files are:
1242 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1243 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1244 on Windows. This is a required file.
1250 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1251 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1252 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1253 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1254 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1255 as many websites as possible.
1258 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1259 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1260 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1261 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1262 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1263 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1264 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1265 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1268 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1270 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1272 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1273 various actions files.
1279 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1280 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1281 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1282 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1283 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1291 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1292 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1293 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1294 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1295 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1296 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1301 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1302 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1303 maximum flexibility.
1307 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1308 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1309 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1310 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1311 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1312 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1313 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1318 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1319 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1320 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1321 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1327 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1330 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1332 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1333 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1334 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1336 <!-- end include -->
1339 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1343 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1345 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1348 The actions files are used to define what actions
1349 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
1350 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1351 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
1352 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application> (as of
1353 version 2.9.15), with differing purposes:
1360 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1361 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1362 provide a base level of functionality for
1363 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1364 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
1365 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and making
1371 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1372 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1373 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1374 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1379 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
1380 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1381 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
1382 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
1383 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
1391 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1392 file, and are processed in the order they are defined. The content of these
1393 can all be viewed and edited from <ulink
1394 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1398 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1399 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1400 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1401 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1402 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1403 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1404 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1405 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1406 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1407 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1408 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1409 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1413 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1414 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1415 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1416 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1417 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1421 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1423 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1425 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1426 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1427 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1428 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
1429 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1430 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1431 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per
1432 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1433 regularly use and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe
1434 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1438 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1439 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1440 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1441 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1445 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1447 <title>How to Edit</title>
1449 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1450 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1451 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1452 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
1453 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
1454 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Advanced</quote>.
1458 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1459 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
1465 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1466 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
1468 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1469 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1470 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1471 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1472 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1473 Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
1477 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1478 compared to all patterns in each action file file. Every time it matches, the list of
1479 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
1480 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
1481 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
1482 the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
1483 a heading line of <literal>{
1484 +<ulink url="actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</ulink> }</literal>,
1485 then later another one with just <literal>{
1486 +<ulink url="actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink> }</literal>, resulting
1487 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply.
1491 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
1492 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1496 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1497 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
1501 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1502 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1503 <title>Patterns</title>
1505 Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
1506 where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
1507 are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
1512 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
1515 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
1516 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
1521 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
1524 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
1530 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
1533 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
1534 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
1539 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
1542 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
1543 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
1548 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
1551 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
1552 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
1559 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1560 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
1563 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
1564 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
1570 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
1573 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
1574 <literal>.example.com</literal>
1579 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
1582 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
1583 <literal>www.</literal>
1588 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
1591 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
1592 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
1599 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
1600 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
1601 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
1602 any single character, you can define character classes in square
1603 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
1608 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1611 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
1612 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
1617 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1620 matches all of the above, and then some.
1625 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
1628 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
1629 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
1634 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
1637 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
1638 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
1639 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
1640 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
1648 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1651 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1652 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
1655 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
1656 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
1661 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
1662 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
1663 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
1664 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
1665 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
1666 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
1670 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
1671 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
1672 for the beginning of a line).
1676 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
1677 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
1678 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
1679 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
1680 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
1686 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1689 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1691 <sect2 id="actions">
1692 <title>Actions</title>
1694 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
1695 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
1696 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
1697 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
1698 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
1699 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
1700 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
1701 previously applied.</quote>
1706 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
1707 separated by whitespace, like in
1708 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
1709 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
1710 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
1711 of the actions file.
1715 There are three classes of actions:
1722 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
1723 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
1727 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
1728 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
1731 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
1738 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
1743 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
1744 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
1745 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
1748 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
1749 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
1752 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
1758 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
1759 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
1760 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
1761 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
1762 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
1763 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
1767 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
1768 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
1769 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
1770 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
1773 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
1774 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
1782 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
1783 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
1784 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
1785 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
1786 files will give a good starting point).
1790 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
1791 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
1792 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
1793 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
1794 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
1795 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
1796 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
1797 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
1800 <!-- start actions listing -->
1802 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
1806 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
1807 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
1808 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
1810 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
1813 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1815 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
1816 <title>add-header</title>
1820 <term>Typical use:</term>
1822 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
1827 <term>Effect:</term>
1830 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
1837 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
1839 <para>Multi-value.</para>
1844 <term>Parameter:</term>
1847 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
1848 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
1858 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
1859 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
1860 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
1867 <term>Example usage:</term>
1870 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
1878 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1879 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
1880 <title>block</title>
1884 <term>Typical use:</term>
1886 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
1891 <term>Effect:</term>
1894 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
1895 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
1896 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
1897 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
1904 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
1906 <para>Boolean.</para>
1911 <term>Parameter:</term>
1921 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
1922 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
1923 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
1924 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
1925 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
1926 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
1927 right now, you can take a look at the
1928 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
1932 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
1933 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
1934 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
1935 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
1936 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
1937 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
1940 It is important to understand this process, in order
1941 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
1942 ads and other unwanted content.
1945 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
1946 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
1947 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
1948 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
1949 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
1955 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
1958 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
1959 .nasty-stuff.example.com
1961 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
1972 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1973 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
1974 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
1978 <term>Typical use:</term>
1981 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
1987 <term>Effect:</term>
1990 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
1997 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
1999 <para>Boolean.</para>
2004 <term>Parameter:</term>
2016 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
2017 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
2018 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
2019 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2022 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2023 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2024 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set.
2030 <term>Example usage:</term>
2033 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
2041 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2042 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
2043 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
2047 <term>Typical use:</term>
2050 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
2056 <term>Effect:</term>
2059 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
2066 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2068 <para>Boolean.</para>
2073 <term>Parameter:</term>
2085 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
2086 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
2087 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
2088 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2091 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2092 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2093 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
2099 <term>Example usage:</term>
2102 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
2111 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2112 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
2113 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
2117 <term>Typical use:</term>
2119 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
2124 <term>Effect:</term>
2127 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
2134 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2136 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2141 <term>Parameter:</term>
2144 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2153 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2154 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2155 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2156 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2157 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2158 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2161 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
2162 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
2169 <term>Example usage:</term>
2172 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
2179 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2180 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
2181 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
2185 <term>Typical use:</term>
2187 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
2192 <term>Effect:</term>
2195 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
2202 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2204 <para>Boolean.</para>
2209 <term>Parameter:</term>
2221 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
2222 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
2223 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
2224 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
2225 is a chance you might need this action.
2231 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2234 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
2235 problem-host.example.com</screen>
2243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2244 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
2245 <title>fast-redirects</title>
2249 <term>Typical use:</term>
2251 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links</para>
2256 <term>Effect:</term>
2259 Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
2266 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2268 <para>Boolean.</para>
2273 <term>Parameter:</term>
2285 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2286 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
2287 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
2288 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
2289 <emphasis>http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else</emphasis>.
2292 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2293 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2294 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
2295 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
2296 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
2300 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
2301 It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly
2302 many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in
2303 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some sites just don't work without
2310 <term>Example usage:</term>
2313 <screen>{+fast-redirects}</screen>
2322 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2323 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
2324 <title>filter</title>
2328 <term>Typical use:</term>
2330 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
2335 <term>Effect:</term>
2338 Text documents, including HTML and JavaScript, to which this action applies, are filtered on-the-fly
2339 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
2346 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2348 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2353 <term>Parameter:</term>
2356 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
2357 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
2358 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
2359 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>). Filtering
2360 can be completely disabled without the use of parameters.
2369 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
2370 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
2374 This is potentially a very powerful feature! But <quote>rolling your own</quote>
2375 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
2378 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
2379 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
2380 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
2381 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
2382 noticeable on slower connections.
2385 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
2386 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
2387 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
2388 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
2389 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered. Inappropriate
2390 MIME types are not filtered.
2393 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
2394 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
2395 would normally be sent compressed, use the
2396 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
2397 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
2400 Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
2401 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2402 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
2403 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
2404 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
2408 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
2409 improved filters is particularly welcome!
2415 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file):</term>
2418 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
2419 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
2422 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
2423 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
2426 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
2427 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners based on their size for this page (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)</screen>
2430 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
2431 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come sneaking in the HTML or JS content</screen>
2434 <anchor id="filter-popups">
2435 <screen>+filter{popups} # Kill all popups in JS and HTML</screen>
2438 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
2439 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
2442 <anchor id="filter-fun">
2443 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
2446 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
2447 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable</screen>
2450 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
2451 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
2454 <anchor id="filter-nimda">
2455 <screen>+filter{nimda} # Remove Nimda (virus) code.</screen>
2458 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
2459 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
2462 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
2463 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"</screen>
2471 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2472 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
2473 <title>handle-as-image</title>
2477 <term>Typical use:</term>
2479 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
2484 <term>Effect:</term>
2487 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
2488 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
2489 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
2490 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
2491 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
2492 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
2499 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2501 <para>Boolean.</para>
2506 <term>Parameter:</term>
2518 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
2519 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
2523 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
2524 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
2525 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
2528 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
2529 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
2530 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
2531 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
2537 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
2540 <screen># Generic image extensions:
2543 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
2545 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
2546 # blocked as images:
2548 {+block +handle-as-image}
2549 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
2551 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
2561 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2562 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
2563 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
2567 <term>Typical use:</term>
2569 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
2574 <term>Effect:</term>
2577 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
2578 and prevents adding a new one.
2585 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2587 <para>Boolean.</para>
2592 <term>Parameter:</term>
2604 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
2607 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
2608 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
2609 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
2610 users sharing the same proxy.
2616 <term>Example usage:</term>
2619 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
2627 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2628 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
2629 <title>hide-from-header</title>
2633 <term>Typical use:</term>
2635 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
2640 <term>Effect:</term>
2643 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
2651 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2653 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2658 <term>Parameter:</term>
2661 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
2670 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
2671 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2675 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
2676 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
2677 is actually used by a real person.
2680 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
2681 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
2687 <term>Example usage:</term>
2690 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
2691 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
2699 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2700 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
2701 <title>hide-referrer</title>
2702 <anchor id="hide-referer">
2705 <term>Typical use:</term>
2707 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
2712 <term>Effect:</term>
2715 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
2716 or replaces it with a forged one.
2723 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2725 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2730 <term>Parameter:</term>
2734 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header completely.</para>
2737 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
2740 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
2750 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
2751 not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable
2752 content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded
2753 by <emphasis>their</emphasis> banners).
2756 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
2757 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
2758 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
2759 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
2760 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
2766 <term>Example usage:</term>
2769 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
2770 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
2778 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2779 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
2780 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
2784 <term>Typical use:</term>
2786 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
2791 <term>Effect:</term>
2794 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
2795 in client requests with the specified value.
2802 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2804 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2809 <term>Parameter:</term>
2812 Any user-defined string.
2822 This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order
2823 to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
2824 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> a <ulink
2825 url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
2830 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
2831 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
2832 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
2833 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
2834 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
2835 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
2836 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
2837 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
2838 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
2839 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
2840 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
2843 This action is scheduled for improvement.
2849 <term>Example usage:</term>
2852 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
2860 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2861 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
2862 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
2866 <term>Typical use:</term>
2868 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows</para>
2873 <term>Effect:</term>
2876 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
2877 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
2884 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2886 <para>Boolean.</para>
2891 <term>Parameter:</term>
2903 This action is easily confused with the built-in, hardwired <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2904 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
2905 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
2906 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
2908 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>popups</replaceable>}</literal>
2912 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
2913 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
2914 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
2915 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
2916 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
2917 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
2920 Killing all pop-ups is a dangerous business. Many shops and banks rely on
2921 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and killing only the unwanted pop-ups
2922 would require artificial intelligence in <application>Privoxy</application>.
2923 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
2924 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
2925 one), you might want to use
2927 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
2933 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
2941 <term>Example usage:</term>
2943 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
2950 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2951 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
2952 <title>limit-connect</title>
2956 <term>Typical use:</term>
2958 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay</para>
2963 <term>Effect:</term>
2966 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
2973 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2975 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2980 <term>Parameter:</term>
2983 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
2984 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
2993 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
2994 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
2995 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
2996 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
2997 for some or all destinations.
3000 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3001 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
3002 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
3003 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
3004 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3005 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3008 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3009 change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
3015 <term>Example usages:</term>
3017 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3018 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3019 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
3021 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
3022 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3023 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3024 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)</screen>
3031 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3032 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
3033 <title>prevent-compression</title>
3037 <term>Typical use:</term>
3040 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
3041 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s
3047 <term>Effect:</term>
3050 Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
3057 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3059 <para>Boolean.</para>
3064 <term>Parameter:</term>
3076 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
3077 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
3078 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
3079 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
3080 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
3081 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
3082 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
3083 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
3086 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
3087 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
3091 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
3092 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
3093 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
3099 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3102 <screen># Set default:
3104 {+prevent-compression}
3107 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
3109 {-prevent-compression}
3111 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
3120 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3121 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
3122 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
3126 <term>Typical use:</term>
3129 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
3135 <term>Effect:</term>
3138 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
3139 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
3146 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3148 <para>Boolean.</para>
3153 <term>Parameter:</term>
3165 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
3168 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3174 <term>Example usage:</term>
3177 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
3186 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3187 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
3188 <title>send-wafer</title>
3192 <term>Typical use:</term>
3195 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
3201 <term>Effect:</term>
3204 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
3211 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3213 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3218 <term>Parameter:</term>
3221 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
3222 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
3231 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
3232 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
3235 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3240 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3243 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
3244 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
3252 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3253 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
3254 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
3258 <term>Typical use:</term>
3261 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
3267 <term>Effect:</term>
3270 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> server headers.
3271 Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and forget them in between sessions.
3278 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3280 <para>Boolean.</para>
3285 <term>Parameter:</term>
3297 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
3298 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
3299 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
3302 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
3303 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
3304 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3305 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3306 sites, and is the recommended setting.
3309 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
3310 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
3311 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
3312 will be plainly killed.
3315 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
3316 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
3322 <term>Example usage:</term>
3325 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
3333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3334 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
3335 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
3339 <term>Typical use:</term>
3341 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
3346 <term>Effect:</term>
3349 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3350 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
3351 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
3352 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
3353 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
3354 sent as a replacement.
3361 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3363 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3368 <term>Parameter:</term>
3373 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
3374 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
3379 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
3380 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
3381 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
3382 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
3387 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
3388 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
3389 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via <quote>file:///</quote> URL).
3392 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
3393 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
3394 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
3395 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
3396 it over and over again.
3407 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
3408 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
3409 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
3412 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
3413 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
3414 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
3420 <term>Example usage:</term>
3426 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
3429 Redirect to the BSD devil:
3432 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
3435 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
3438 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
3446 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3448 <title>Summary</title>
3450 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
3451 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
3452 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
3453 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
3454 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
3455 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
3461 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3462 <sect2 id="aliases">
3463 <title>Aliases</title>
3465 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
3466 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
3467 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
3468 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
3470 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
3471 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
3472 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
3473 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
3474 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
3478 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
3479 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
3480 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
3481 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
3485 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
3486 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
3487 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
3488 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
3489 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
3490 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
3491 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
3494 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
3495 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
3496 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
3497 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
3498 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
3500 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
3504 Now let's define some aliases...
3509 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
3511 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
3512 # must be at the top of the actions file!
3516 # These aliases just save typing later:
3517 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3519 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
3520 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
3521 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3522 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
3524 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3525 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3527 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
3528 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups
3530 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
3532 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
3533 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
3537 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
3538 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
3539 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
3544 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
3545 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
3548 .office.microsoft.com
3549 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
3553 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
3557 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3560 # These shops require pop-ups:
3562 {shop -kill-popups -filter{popups}}
3564 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
3568 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
3569 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
3570 in order to function properly.
3574 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3575 <sect2 id="act-examples">
3576 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
3578 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
3579 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
3580 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
3581 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
3582 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
3583 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
3584 file and see how all these pieces come together:
3587 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
3590 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
3594 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
3598 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
3599 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
3600 change or worry about:
3605 ##########################################################################
3606 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
3607 ##########################################################################
3610 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
3614 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
3615 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
3616 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
3621 ##########################################################################
3623 ##########################################################################
3626 # These aliases just save typing later:
3627 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3629 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
3630 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
3631 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3632 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
3634 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3635 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3637 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
3638 shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups</screen>
3642 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
3643 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
3644 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
3645 enable the ones we want.
3649 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
3650 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
3651 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
3652 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
3653 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
3654 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
3655 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
3660 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
3661 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
3662 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
3663 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
3664 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
3665 multiple lines with line continuation.
3670 ##########################################################################
3671 # "Defaults" section:
3672 ##########################################################################
3674 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
3675 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
3676 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
3677 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
3678 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
3679 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
3680 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
3681 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
3682 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
3683 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
3684 +<link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> \
3685 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
3686 -<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
3687 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
3688 +<link linkend="FILTER-NIMDA">filter{nimda}</link> \
3689 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
3690 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
3691 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
3692 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
3693 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
3694 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
3695 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
3696 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
3697 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
3698 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
3699 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
3700 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
3701 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
3702 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
3703 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
3705 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
3709 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
3710 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
3711 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
3712 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
3713 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
3714 want to block in later sections.
3715 We will also want to make exceptions from our general pop-up-killing,
3716 and use our defined aliases for that.
3720 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
3721 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
3722 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
3723 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
3724 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
3725 of actions explicitly:
3730 ##########################################################################
3731 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
3732 ##########################################################################
3734 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
3737 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
3738 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
3742 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
3743 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
3744 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
3753 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3755 .scan.co.uk</screen>
3759 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
3760 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
3761 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
3762 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
3764 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
3765 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
3766 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
3767 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
3768 chosen in the defaults section:
3773 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
3775 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
3778 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
3782 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
3783 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
3784 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
3789 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
3793 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
3794 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
3795 .nytimes.com</screen>
3799 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
3800 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
3801 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
3802 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
3803 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
3804 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
3805 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
3806 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
3807 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
3813 ##########################################################################
3815 ##########################################################################
3817 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
3818 # blocked further down this file:
3820 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
3821 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
3825 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
3826 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
3827 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
3828 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
3829 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
3830 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
3831 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
3832 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
3833 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3834 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
3835 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
3836 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
3841 # Known ad generators:
3846 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
3847 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
3848 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
3855 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
3856 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
3857 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
3858 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
3859 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
3860 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
3861 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
3862 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
3863 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
3866 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
3867 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
3868 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
3869 to keep the example short:
3874 ##########################################################################
3875 # Block these fine banners:
3876 ##########################################################################
3877 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
3885 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
3886 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
3888 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
3890 .hitbox.com</screen>
3894 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
3895 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
3896 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
3897 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
3900 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
3901 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
3902 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
3903 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
3904 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
3905 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
3909 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
3910 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
3911 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
3912 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
3913 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
3914 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
3915 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
3916 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
3917 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
3918 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
3923 ##########################################################################
3924 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
3925 ##########################################################################
3929 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
3930 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
3931 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
3932 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
3933 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
3934 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
3942 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
3943 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
3947 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
3948 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
3949 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
3950 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
3951 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
3956 # Don't filter code!
3958 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
3960 .sourceforge.net</screen>
3964 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
3965 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
3970 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
3973 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
3974 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
3975 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
3976 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
3977 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
3978 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
3979 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
3980 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
3981 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
3982 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
3983 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
3984 to install updated versions from time to time.
3988 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
3989 <filename>user.action</filename>:
3993 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
3997 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
4001 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
4002 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
4003 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
4008 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
4011 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
4012 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
4013 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
4014 shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups
4015 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} # (see below)</screen>
4020 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
4021 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
4022 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
4023 <literal>mercy-for-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
4024 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and
4025 processing of cookies to make them temporary.
4030 { mercy-for-cookies }
4035 .redhat.com</screen>
4039 Your bank needs popups and is allergic to some filter, but you don't
4040 know which, so you disable them all:
4045 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> }
4046 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
4050 While browsing the web with <application>Privoxy</application> you
4051 noticed some ads that sneaked through, but you were too lazy to
4052 report them through our fine and easy <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>
4053 system, so you have added them here:
4058 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4059 www.a-popular-site.com/some/unobvious/path
4060 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
4064 Note that, assuming the banners in the above example have regular image
4065 extensions (most do),
4066 <literal>+<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link></literal>
4067 need not be specified, since all URLs ending in these extensions will
4068 already have been tagged as images in the relevant section of
4069 <filename>default.action</filename> by now.
4073 Then you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
4074 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
4075 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
4076 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
4077 -- whoa! -- it worked:
4083 .forbes.com</screen>
4087 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
4088 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
4089 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
4090 update-safe config, once and for all:
4095 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
4096 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
4100 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
4101 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
4102 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
4103 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
4104 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
4108 Finally, you might think about how your favourite free websites are
4109 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
4110 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
4111 sites that you feel provide value to you:
4123 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
4124 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4125 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>
4131 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4135 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4137 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4139 <sect1 id="filter-file">
4140 <title>The Filter File</title>
4143 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
4144 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
4145 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
4146 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
4147 selected through the <literal>
4148 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
4153 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
4154 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
4155 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
4156 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
4157 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
4158 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
4162 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including plain
4163 text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
4164 MIME types). Substitutions are made at the source level, so if
4165 you want to <quote>roll your own</quote> filters, you should be
4166 familiar with HTML syntax.
4170 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
4171 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
4172 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
4173 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
4174 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
4175 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
4176 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
4177 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
4178 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
4179 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
4180 user interface</ulink>.
4184 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
4185 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
4186 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
4187 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
4191 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
4196 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
4200 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
4201 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
4202 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
4203 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
4204 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
4205 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.3.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
4206 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
4207 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
4208 to ungreedy matching.
4212 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
4213 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
4214 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
4216 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
4217 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
4218 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
4219 expressions</ulink> in general.
4220 The below examples might also help to get you started.
4223 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4225 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
4227 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
4228 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
4229 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
4234 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
4238 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
4239 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
4240 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
4241 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
4245 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4249 Our complete filter now looks like this:
4252 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
4253 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4257 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
4258 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
4259 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
4265 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
4267 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
4269 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
4273 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
4274 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
4275 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
4276 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
4280 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
4281 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
4282 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
4283 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
4284 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
4288 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
4289 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
4290 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
4291 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
4292 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
4293 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
4294 in the page (and appear in that order).
4298 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
4299 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
4300 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
4301 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
4302 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
4306 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
4307 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
4308 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
4309 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
4310 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
4311 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
4312 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
4313 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
4314 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
4315 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
4316 substitution is global.
4320 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
4321 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
4322 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
4323 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
4324 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
4328 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
4329 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
4330 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
4331 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
4332 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
4333 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
4334 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
4335 Business!"</literal>.
4339 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
4340 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
4341 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
4342 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
4343 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
4344 information anymore.
4348 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
4349 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
4354 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
4356 s/window\.status\s*=\s*['"].*?['"]/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
4360 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
4361 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
4362 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
4363 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
4364 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
4365 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>.
4369 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
4370 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
4371 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
4372 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
4373 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
4374 you move your mouse over links.
4379 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
4381 s/(<body .*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
4386 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
4387 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
4388 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
4389 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
4390 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
4391 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
4396 The last example is from the fun department:
4401 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
4403 # Spice the daily news:
4405 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
4409 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
4410 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
4411 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
4412 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
4413 still replacing the word everywhere else.
4418 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
4420 s* industry[ -]leading \
4422 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
4423 | high[ -]performance \
4424 | solutions[ -]based \
4428 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
4433 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
4434 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
4443 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4447 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4449 <sect1 id="templates">
4450 <title>Templates</title>
4452 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
4453 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
4454 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
4455 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4457 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
4458 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
4459 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
4464 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
4465 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
4467 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
4471 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
4472 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
4473 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
4474 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
4475 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
4476 ignored when the templates are filled in.
4480 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
4481 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
4482 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
4483 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
4484 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
4488 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
4489 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
4490 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
4491 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
4492 in in an alpha or beta development stage:
4497 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
4499 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
4501 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
4505 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
4506 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
4507 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
4511 <screen><!-- --></screen>
4515 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
4516 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
4521 All templates refer to a style located at
4522 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
4523 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
4524 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
4525 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
4530 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4534 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4536 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
4539 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
4541 <!-- end boilerplate -->
4545 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4548 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4549 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
4551 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4553 <!-- end copyright -->
4555 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4556 <sect2><title>License</title>
4557 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4559 <!-- end copyright -->
4561 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4564 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4566 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
4567 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
4569 <!-- end history -->
4572 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
4573 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
4575 <!-- end authors -->
4580 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4583 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4584 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
4585 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
4587 <!-- end seealso -->
4592 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4593 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
4596 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4598 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
4600 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
4601 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
4602 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
4603 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
4604 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
4608 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
4609 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
4610 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
4611 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
4615 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
4616 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
4617 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
4618 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
4619 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
4620 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
4621 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
4622 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
4626 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
4627 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
4628 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
4629 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
4630 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
4631 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
4632 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
4633 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
4637 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
4638 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
4639 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
4640 and then some examples:
4645 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
4646 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
4648 </simplelist></para>
4652 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
4655 </simplelist></para>
4659 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
4662 </simplelist></para>
4666 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
4669 </simplelist></para>
4673 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
4674 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
4675 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
4676 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
4677 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
4678 meta-character meaning of any single character).
4680 </simplelist></para>
4684 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
4685 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
4686 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
4687 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
4689 </simplelist></para>
4693 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
4694 or multiple sub-expressions.
4696 </simplelist></para>
4700 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
4701 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
4702 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
4703 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
4704 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
4705 example</quote>, and nothing else.
4707 </simplelist></para>
4710 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
4711 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
4712 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
4713 be more illuminating:
4717 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
4718 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
4719 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
4720 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
4721 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
4722 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
4723 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
4724 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
4725 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
4726 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
4727 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
4728 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
4729 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
4730 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
4735 A now something a little more complex:
4739 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
4740 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
4741 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
4742 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
4743 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
4744 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
4745 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
4750 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
4751 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
4752 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
4753 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
4754 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
4755 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
4756 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
4757 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
4758 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
4759 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
4760 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
4761 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
4762 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
4763 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
4764 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
4765 changing our regular expression to:
4766 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
4771 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
4772 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
4773 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
4774 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
4775 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
4776 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
4777 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
4778 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
4779 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
4780 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
4781 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
4782 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
4783 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
4784 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
4785 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
4786 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
4787 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
4788 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
4789 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
4790 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
4791 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
4792 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
4793 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
4794 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
4795 in the expression anywhere).
4799 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
4800 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
4801 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
4802 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
4803 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
4808 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
4809 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
4813 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
4814 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
4819 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4822 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4824 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
4827 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
4828 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
4829 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
4830 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
4831 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
4832 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
4833 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
4839 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
4840 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
4841 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
4842 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
4855 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
4859 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
4860 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
4861 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
4867 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
4868 editing of actions files:
4872 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
4879 Show the source code version numbers:
4883 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
4890 Show the browser's request headers:
4894 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
4901 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
4905 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
4912 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
4913 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
4917 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
4921 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
4925 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
4930 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
4939 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
4943 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
4944 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
4946 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
4947 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
4948 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
4949 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
4950 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
4951 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
4954 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
4955 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
4956 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
4957 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
4958 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
4959 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
4968 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
4975 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
4982 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
4989 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
4995 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
5000 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
5007 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
5008 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
5009 have more information about bookmarklets.
5018 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5020 <title>Chain of Events</title>
5022 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
5023 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
5030 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
5031 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
5032 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
5038 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
5039 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
5044 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
5046 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
5047 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
5048 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
5049 is then checked and if it does not match, an
5050 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
5051 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
5052 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
5053 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
5058 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
5059 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
5064 If the URL pattern matches the <link
5065 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
5066 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
5071 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
5072 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
5073 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
5074 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
5080 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
5086 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
5087 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
5088 filtered as deterimined by the
5089 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
5090 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
5091 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
5097 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
5098 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
5099 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
5104 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5106 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5107 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
5108 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
5109 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
5110 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
5111 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
5112 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
5113 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
5114 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
5117 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5119 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5120 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
5121 to the client browser as it becomes available.
5126 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
5127 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
5128 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
5129 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
5130 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
5131 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
5141 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5142 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
5143 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
5146 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
5147 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
5148 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
5149 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
5150 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
5151 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
5152 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
5153 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
5154 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
5159 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
5160 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
5161 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
5162 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
5163 logs is a good idea too.
5167 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
5168 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5169 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
5170 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
5174 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
5175 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
5176 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
5177 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
5178 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
5179 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
5180 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
5181 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
5182 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
5183 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
5184 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
5185 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
5186 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
5191 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
5192 and look at it one section at a time:
5197 Matches for http://google.com:
5199 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5203 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5204 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5205 +deanimate-gifs{last}
5206 -downgrade-http-version
5210 -filter{shockwave-flash}
5211 -filter{crude-parental}
5212 +filter{html-annoyances}
5213 +filter{js-annoyances}
5214 +filter{content-cookies}
5216 +filter{refresh-tags}
5218 +filter{banners-by-size}
5219 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5220 +hide-from-header{block}
5221 +hide-referer{forge}
5226 +prevent-compression
5229 +session-cookies-only
5230 +set-image-blocker{pattern} }
5233 { -session-cookies-only }
5239 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5240 (no matches in this file)
5245 This tells us how we have defined our
5246 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
5247 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
5248 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
5249 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
5250 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
5251 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
5252 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
5253 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
5254 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
5255 -- <quote>/</quote>.
5259 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
5260 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
5261 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
5262 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
5264 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
5265 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
5266 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
5268 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
5269 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
5270 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
5271 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
5272 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
5273 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
5274 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
5279 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
5283 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
5284 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
5285 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
5296 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5297 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5298 +deanimate-gifs{last}
5299 -downgrade-http-version
5303 -filter{shockwave-flash}
5304 -filter{crude-parental}
5305 +filter{html-annoyances}
5306 +filter{js-annoyances}
5307 +filter{content-cookies}
5309 +filter{refresh-tags}
5311 +filter{banners-by-size}
5312 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5313 +hide-from-header{block}
5314 +hide-referer{forge}
5319 +prevent-compression
5322 -session-cookies-only
5323 +set-image-blocker{pattern}
5328 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
5329 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
5333 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
5339 { +block +handle-as-image }
5342 { +block +handle-as-image }
5345 { +block +handle-as-image }
5351 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
5352 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
5353 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
5354 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
5355 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
5356 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
5361 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
5362 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
5363 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
5364 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
5365 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
5366 is done here -- as both a <link
5367 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
5368 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
5370 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
5371 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
5376 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
5377 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
5383 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
5385 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5389 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5390 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5392 -downgrade-http-version
5394 +filter{html-annoyances}
5395 +filter{js-annoyances}
5396 +filter{kill-popups}
5399 +filter{banners-by-size}
5402 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5403 +hide-from-header{block}
5404 +hide-referer{forge}
5408 +prevent-compression
5411 +session-cookies-only
5412 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
5415 { +block +handle-as-image }
5421 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
5422 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
5423 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
5424 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
5425 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
5437 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
5438 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
5442 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
5449 { +block +handle-as-image }
5455 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
5456 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
5457 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
5458 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
5459 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. These
5460 tend to be harder to troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of
5461 aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
5469 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5477 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
5478 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
5479 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
5492 This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most
5493 appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
5498 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
5499 <quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote> rule, which assumes
5500 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well most of the time
5501 since these tend to be standardized).
5505 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
5506 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
5507 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
5508 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
5517 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
5518 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
5519 Public License as published by the Free Software
5520 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
5521 your option) any later version.
5523 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
5524 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
5525 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
5526 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
5527 License for more details.
5529 The GNU General Public License should be included with
5530 this file. If not, you can view it at
5531 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
5532 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
5533 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
5535 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
5536 Revision 1.127 2002/06/09 16:37:31 hal9
5537 Sync with filtering clarifications in 3.0 branch.
5539 Revision 1.126 2002/06/05 00:31:55 hal9
5540 Mass commit for new entities, most significantly so docs can read version
5541 and code status info from tmp files, so perl is no longer used. Also, docs can
5542 differentiate on alpha -> beta -> stable now.
5544 Revision 1.125 2002/06/03 00:28:17 hal9
5545 Sync with various changes from 3.0 branch. Add two new files for config stuff.
5547 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
5548 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
5549 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
5550 so that these are in sync with each other.
5552 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
5553 Ooops missed something from David.
5555 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
5556 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
5557 That's a wrap, I think.
5559 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
5560 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
5562 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
5563 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
5565 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
5566 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
5567 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
5569 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
5570 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
5572 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
5573 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
5574 <literal><link> style.
5575 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
5576 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
5577 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
5578 renders them red (bad in TOC).
5580 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
5581 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
5583 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
5586 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
5587 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
5588 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
5590 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
5591 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
5592 - Small changes to Regex appendix
5593 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
5595 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
5596 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
5598 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
5599 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
5601 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
5602 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
5604 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
5605 Extended and further commented the example actions files
5607 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
5608 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
5611 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
5614 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
5615 Restored alphabetical order of actions
5617 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
5618 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
5620 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
5621 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
5623 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
5624 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
5625 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
5627 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
5628 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
5629 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
5630 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
5632 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
5633 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
5635 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
5638 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
5639 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
5640 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
5642 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
5643 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
5645 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
5646 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
5647 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
5649 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
5650 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
5652 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
5653 more structure in starting section
5655 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
5656 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
5657 will probably break links elsewhere :(
5659 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
5660 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
5661 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
5663 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
5664 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
5665 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
5667 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
5668 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
5670 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
5671 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
5672 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
5674 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
5675 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
5676 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
5678 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
5679 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
5681 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
5682 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
5684 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
5685 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
5687 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
5688 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
5690 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
5691 Updated OSX installation section
5692 Added a few English tweaks here an there
5694 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
5695 Re-write actions section.
5697 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
5698 Fix ugly typo (mine).
5700 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
5701 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
5703 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
5704 Added RPM install detail
5706 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
5709 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
5710 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
5712 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
5713 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
5715 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
5716 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
5718 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
5721 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
5722 Proofreading, part one
5724 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
5725 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
5726 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
5728 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
5729 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
5731 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
5732 Add small section on submitting actions.
5734 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
5737 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
5738 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
5740 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
5741 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
5743 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
5746 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
5747 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
5748 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
5749 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
5750 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
5752 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
5753 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
5755 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
5756 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
5758 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
5759 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
5760 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
5761 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
5762 eventually be set by Makefile.
5763 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
5765 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
5766 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
5768 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
5769 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
5771 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
5772 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
5774 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
5775 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
5776 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
5777 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
5779 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
5782 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
5783 Added more to Anatomy section.
5785 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
5786 Touch up intro for new name.
5788 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
5789 we have a new homepage!
5791 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
5792 A few minor catch ups with name change.
5794 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
5795 configure needs to be generated.
5797 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
5798 we are too lazy to make a block-built
5799 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
5801 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
5802 name change related issue.
5804 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
5805 name change. changed filenames.
5807 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
5810 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
5811 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
5812 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
5813 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
5814 comments and remarks to history untouched.
5816 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
5819 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
5820 New section in Appendix.
5822 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
5823 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
5825 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
5826 correct feedback channels
5828 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
5829 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
5831 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
5834 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
5835 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
5837 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
5838 Added imageblock{pattern}.
5840 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
5843 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
5844 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
5846 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
5847 provide correct feedback channels
5849 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
5850 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
5852 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
5853 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
5855 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
5856 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
5858 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
5859 Add new - - user option.
5861 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
5862 Added section on command line options.
5864 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
5865 Changed default port to 8118
5867 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
5868 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
5870 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
5871 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
5872 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
5875 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
5878 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
5879 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
5881 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
5882 Update OS/2 build section
5884 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
5885 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
5886 will work - no other changes are needed.
5888 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
5889 Added a very short section on Templates
5891 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
5892 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
5894 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
5895 Touch ups for *.action files.
5897 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
5900 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
5901 Updates for recent changes.
5903 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
5904 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
5906 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
5907 Correct 2 minor errors
5909 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
5910 *** empty log message ***
5912 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
5913 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
5915 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
5916 wrong url in documentation
5918 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
5919 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
5921 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
5924 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
5927 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
5930 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
5931 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
5933 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
5934 Some additions, and re-arranging.
5936 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
5939 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
5940 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
5942 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
5945 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
5946 source files for junkbuster documentation
5948 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
5949 first proposal of a structure.
5951 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
5952 docs should have an author.
5954 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
5955 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob