1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "INCLUDE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "2.9.14">
12 <!entity p-status "beta">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
14 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
16 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
17 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-config "IGNORE">
19 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
22 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
25 This file belongs into
26 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
28 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9 Exp $
30 Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
31 Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
33 Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
34 by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
35 Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
38 ========================================================================
39 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
40 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
41 ========================================================================
47 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
49 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
54 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
63 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
64 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
65 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
71 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
73 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
76 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
78 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
81 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
82 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
83 Please see the <ulink url="contact.html">Contact section</ulink> on how to
84 contact the developers.
88 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
94 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
95 <sect1 id="intro" label=""><title></title>
96 <!-- dummy section to force TOC on page by itself -->
97 <!-- DO NOT REMOVE! please ;) -->
101 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
103 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
105 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
106 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
107 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
108 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
109 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
110 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
111 earlier versions. The target release date for
112 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
115 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
118 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
119 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
120 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
125 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
126 <sect2 id="newfeatures">
127 <title>New Features</title>
129 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
130 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
131 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
132 some of them currently under development]]>:
135 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
137 <!-- end boilerplate -->
142 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
145 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
146 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
149 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
150 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
151 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
152 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project Page</ulink>.
156 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
157 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
158 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
159 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
160 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
164 <!-- Include supported.sgml boilerplate -->
166 <!-- end boilerplate -->
168 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
169 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
172 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
173 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
174 will either need to remove it, or that might be done by the setup
175 procedure. (See below for your platform).
179 In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration
180 if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> In that case, also see the
181 <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link>.
185 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
188 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
189 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and SuSE RPMs</title>
192 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh <name-of-rpm.rpm></literal>,
193 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
194 of configuration files.
198 Note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
199 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
200 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
201 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
205 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
206 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
213 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
216 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
217 the installation process.
221 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
222 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
225 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
226 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
231 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
232 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
235 First, make sure that no previous installations of
236 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
237 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
242 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
243 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
244 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
245 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
249 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
250 into will contain all of the configuration files.
254 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
255 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
261 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
262 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
264 Unpack the <literal>.lha</literal> archive, then FIXME.
269 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
270 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
272 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
274 <!-- end boilerplate -->
279 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
282 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
284 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
287 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
288 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
289 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
291 There are very significant changes from older versions of
292 <application>Junkbuster</application> to the current
293 <application>Privoxy</application>. Configuration is substantially
294 changed. <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> and earlier
295 configuration files will not migrate. The functionality of the old
296 <filename>blockfile</filename>, <filename>cookiefile</filename> and
297 <filename>imagelist</filename>, are now combined into the
298 <quote>actions file</quote> (<filename>default.action</filename>
299 for most installations).
302 A <quote>filter file</quote> (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>)
303 is new as of <application>Privoxy 2.9.x</application>, and provides some
304 of the new sophistication (explained below). <filename>config</filename> is
305 much the same as before.
308 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
309 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
310 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
311 to the new actions file, please note that even the pattern syntax has
312 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
313 recommended to use the new configuration files.
316 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
324 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
330 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
331 important configuration files!
336 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
337 at the special URL: <ulink
338 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
339 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
340 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
341 <application>Privoxy</application>.
346 The primary configuration file for cookie management, ad and banner
347 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
348 configuration is <filename>default.action</filename>. It is strongly
349 recommended to become familiar with the new actions concept below,
350 before modifying this file.
355 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
356 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
357 Some installers may not automatically start
358 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
367 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
369 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
371 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
372 will want to configure your browser(s) to use <application>Privoxy</application>
373 as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is localhost for the proxy address,
374 and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 8000). This is the one required
375 configuration that must be done!
379 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
380 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
381 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
382 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
383 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
384 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
385 localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
389 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
390 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
391 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
392 <application>Privoxy</application>!
397 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
398 main configuration file to be used on the command line. Example Unix startup
405 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
411 See <link linkend="cmdoptions">below</link> for other command line options.
415 An init script is provided for SuSE and Red Hat.
419 For for SuSE: <command>rcprivoxy start</command>
423 For Red Hat: <command>/etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start</command>
428 If no configuration file is specified on the command line,
429 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
430 <filename>config</filename> in the current directory. Except on Win32 where
431 it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>. If no file is specified on the
432 command line and no default configuration file can be found,
433 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
438 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
439 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
440 <quote>actions</quote> files. These are where various cookie actions are
441 defined, ad and banner blocking, and other aspects of
442 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several such
443 files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
447 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent
448 cookies, and add these to <filename>default.action</filename> as needed. By
449 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
450 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), until you add them to the
451 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
452 to edit <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you
453 use more than one browser, it would make more sense to let
454 <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the
455 browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
459 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
460 sites is the popup-killing (through the <literal>+popup</literal> and
461 <literal>+filter{popups}</literal> actions), because your favorite shopping,
462 banking, or leisure site may need popups.
466 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
467 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
468 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
469 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
470 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
471 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
472 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
473 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
474 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
478 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
479 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
480 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
481 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote> (as specified in <filename>default.action</filename>)
482 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
483 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
484 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
485 and then follow the link to <quote>edit the actions list</quote>.
486 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
490 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
491 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
492 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
493 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
494 to a given URL. In addition to the <filename>default.action</filename> file
495 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
496 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
500 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
501 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
502 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
503 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
504 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
505 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
510 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
511 url="configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
512 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
517 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
518 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
519 chapter "Contacting the Developers, .." below.
525 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
526 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
527 <title>Command Line Options</title>
529 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
530 command-line options:
538 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
541 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
546 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
549 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
554 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
557 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
558 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
563 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
567 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
568 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
569 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
570 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
575 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
579 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
580 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
581 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
586 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
589 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
590 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
591 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
592 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
593 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
594 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
605 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
608 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
609 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
611 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
612 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
613 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
614 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
619 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
622 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
624 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
625 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
626 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
627 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
628 You will see the following section:
635 Please choose from the following options:
638 * Show information about the current configuration
639 * Show the source code version numbers
640 * Show the request headers.
641 * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
642 * Toggle Privoxy on or off
643 * Edit the actions list
649 This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for the
650 <quote>actions list</quote>, which is where much of the ad, banner, cookie,
651 and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
652 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
653 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
654 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
658 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
659 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
660 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
661 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
662 to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled. There
663 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
664 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
670 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
675 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
678 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
680 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
681 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
682 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
683 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
684 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
685 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
689 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though possibly
690 aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are only three
691 default configuration files (this may change in time):
699 The main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>
700 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
707 <filename>default.action</filename> (the actions file) is used to define
708 which of a set of various <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners,
709 pop-ups, access restrictions, banners and cookies are to be applied, and where.
710 There is a web based editor for this file that can be accessed at <ulink
711 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/</ulink>
712 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/edit-actions/">http://p.p/edit-actions/</ulink>).
713 (Other actions files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
714 and blocking, e.g. <filename>basic.action</filename>.)
720 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the filter file) can be used to re-write the raw
721 page content, including viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript,
722 and whatever else lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only
723 pre-defined here; whether to apply them or not is up to the actions file.
731 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
732 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
733 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
734 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
735 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
736 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
741 <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>default.filter</filename>
742 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
747 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
748 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
749 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
750 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
751 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
752 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
753 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
758 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
759 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
760 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
761 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
767 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
770 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
772 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
773 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
774 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
775 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
783 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis>
790 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
791 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
792 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
796 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
797 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
798 for what happens if you leave them unset.
802 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
803 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
804 where you may be surfing).
808 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
811 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
814 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
815 other files for additional configuration and logging.
816 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
817 where to find those other files.
821 <sect4><title>confdir</title>
825 <term>Specifies:</term>
827 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
831 <term>Type of value:</term>
833 <para>Path name</para>
837 <term>Default value:</term>
839 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
843 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
845 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
852 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
855 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
856 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
857 For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
858 <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
859 output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
867 <sect4><title>logdir</title>
871 <term>Specifies:</term>
874 The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
875 <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
880 <term>Type of value:</term>
882 <para>Path name</para>
886 <term>Default value:</term>
888 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
892 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
894 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
901 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
908 <sect4><title>actionsfile</title>
912 <term>Specifies:</term>
915 The actions file to use
920 <term>Type of value:</term>
922 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
926 <term>Default value:</term>
928 <para>default.action (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.action.txt (Windows)</para>
932 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
935 No action is taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
943 There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without
944 an actions file. There are three different actions files included in the
945 distribution, with varying degrees of aggressiveness:
946 <filename>default.action</filename>, <filename>intermediate.action</filename> and
947 <filename>advanced.action</filename>.
954 <sect4><title>filterfile</title>
958 <term>Specifies:</term>
961 The filter file to use
966 <term>Type of value:</term>
968 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
972 <term>Default value:</term>
974 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
978 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
981 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
982 <literal>+filter{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
983 actions in the actions file are turned off
991 The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
992 that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
993 changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
994 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
995 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
996 it appears on a Web page.
1003 <sect4><title>logfile</title>
1007 <term>Specifies:</term>
1015 <term>Type of value:</term>
1017 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1021 <term>Default value:</term>
1023 <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
1027 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1030 No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>stderr</literal>).
1038 The windows version will additionally log to the console.
1041 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
1042 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
1043 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
1044 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
1045 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
1048 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
1049 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
1050 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat, a <command>logrotate</command>
1051 script has been included.
1054 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
1055 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
1056 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
1057 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
1064 <sect4><title>jarfile</title>
1068 <term>Specifies:</term>
1071 The file to store intercepted cookies in
1076 <term>Type of value:</term>
1078 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1082 <term>Default value:</term>
1084 <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
1088 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1091 Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
1099 The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
1106 <sect4><title>trustfile</title>
1110 <term>Specifies:</term>
1113 The trust file to use
1118 <term>Type of value:</term>
1120 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1124 <term>Default value:</term>
1126 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
1130 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1133 The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
1141 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
1142 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
1145 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
1146 access to sites that are named in the trustfile.
1147 You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
1148 the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
1149 trusted referrer was used.
1150 The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
1151 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
1154 If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
1163 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1167 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1170 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
1173 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
1174 that just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
1175 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies etc.
1178 <sect4><title>trust-info-url</title>
1182 <term>Specifies:</term>
1185 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
1190 <term>Type of value:</term>
1196 <term>Default value:</term>
1198 <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
1202 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1205 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
1213 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
1214 activated. (See <literal>trustfile</literal> above.)
1217 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
1218 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
1219 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
1222 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
1223 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
1230 <sect4><title>admin-address</title>
1234 <term>Specifies:</term>
1237 An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
1242 <term>Type of value:</term>
1244 <para>Email address</para>
1248 <term>Default value:</term>
1250 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1254 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1257 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1265 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1266 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1274 <sect4><title>proxy-info-url</title>
1278 <term>Specifies:</term>
1281 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
1282 configuration or policies.
1287 <term>Type of value:</term>
1293 <term>Default value:</term>
1295 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1299 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1302 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1310 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1311 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1315 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
1323 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1325 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1328 <title>Debugging</title>
1331 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
1332 Note that you might also want to invoke
1333 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
1334 command line option when debugging.
1337 <sect4><title>debug</title>
1341 <term>Specifies:</term>
1344 Key values that determine what information gets logged.
1349 <term>Type of value:</term>
1351 <para>Integer values</para>
1355 <term>Default value:</term>
1357 <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
1361 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1364 Nothing gets logged.
1372 The available debug levels are:
1376 debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1377 debug 2 # show each connection status
1378 debug 4 # show I/O status
1379 debug 8 # show header parsing
1380 debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
1381 debug 32 # debug force feature
1382 debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
1383 debug 128 # debug fast redirects
1384 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1385 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1386 debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
1387 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1388 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1392 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1393 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
1396 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
1397 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
1398 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
1399 only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
1400 a hell of an output (especially 16).
1404 The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
1405 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1408 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1409 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
1416 <sect4><title>single-threaded</title>
1420 <term>Specifies:</term>
1423 Whether to run only one server thread
1428 <term>Type of value:</term>
1430 <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
1434 <term>Default value:</term>
1436 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1440 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1443 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
1444 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
1452 This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
1453 need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
1462 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1465 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
1468 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
1469 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
1472 <sect4><title>listen-address</title>
1476 <term>Specifies:</term>
1479 The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
1480 listen for client requests.
1485 <term>Type of value:</term>
1487 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1491 <term>Default value:</term>
1493 <para>localhost:8118</para>
1497 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1500 Bind to localhost (127.0.0.1), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
1501 home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
1510 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
1513 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1514 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1515 will need to override the default.
1518 If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
1519 bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
1520 from the Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (acl's)
1521 (see <quote>ACLs</quote> below), or a firewall.
1526 <term>Example:</term>
1529 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
1530 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
1531 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
1532 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
1536 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1544 <sect4><title>toggle</title>
1548 <term>Specifies:</term>
1551 Initial state of "toggle" status
1556 <term>Type of value:</term>
1562 <term>Default value:</term>
1568 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1571 Act as if toggled on
1579 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
1580 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
1581 proxy. See <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal>
1582 below. This is not really useful anymore, since toggling is much easier
1583 via <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web
1584 interface</ulink> then via editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
1587 The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
1588 if this option is present.
1596 <sect4><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
1599 <term>Specifies:</term>
1602 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
1603 feature</ulink> may be used
1608 <term>Type of value:</term>
1614 <term>Default value:</term>
1620 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1623 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
1631 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
1632 content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
1636 For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1637 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1638 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1639 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1640 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
1641 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1644 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1645 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1653 <sect4><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
1656 <term>Specifies:</term>
1659 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">web-based actions
1660 file editor</ulink> may be used
1665 <term>Type of value:</term>
1671 <term>Default value:</term>
1677 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1680 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
1688 For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1689 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1690 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1691 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1692 modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
1693 recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1696 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1697 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1704 <sect4><title>ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
1707 <term>Specifies:</term>
1710 Who can access what.
1715 <term>Type of value:</term>
1718 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
1719 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
1722 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
1723 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
1724 DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
1725 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
1726 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
1727 destination part are optional.
1732 <term>Default value:</term>
1734 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1738 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1741 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
1749 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
1750 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
1751 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
1752 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost or internal (home)
1753 network address by means of the <literal>listen-address</literal> option.
1756 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
1757 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
1761 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
1762 If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
1763 talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
1764 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
1765 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
1768 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
1769 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
1770 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
1771 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1772 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
1773 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1776 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
1777 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
1778 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
1779 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
1782 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
1783 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
1788 <term>Examples:</term>
1791 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1792 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
1793 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
1794 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1798 permit-access localhost
1802 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
1803 nothing but www.example.com:
1807 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1811 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
1812 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
1816 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1817 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1825 <sect4><title>buffer-limit</title>
1829 <term>Specifies:</term>
1832 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
1837 <term>Type of value:</term>
1839 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
1843 <term>Default value:</term>
1849 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1852 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
1860 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
1861 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
1862 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
1863 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
1864 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
1868 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
1869 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
1870 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
1871 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
1872 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
1882 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1885 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1887 <sect3 id="forwarding">
1888 <title>Forwarding</title>
1891 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
1893 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
1894 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
1895 through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
1896 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
1897 Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
1898 proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
1899 runs on has no direct Internet access.
1903 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
1904 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
1907 <sect4><title>forward</title>
1910 <term>Specifies:</term>
1913 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
1918 <term>Type of value:</term>
1921 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1922 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1925 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
1926 chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
1927 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
1928 as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
1929 <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
1930 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
1931 values from 1 to 64535
1936 <term>Default value:</term>
1938 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1942 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1945 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
1953 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
1954 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
1957 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
1962 <term>Examples:</term>
1965 Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
1969 forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
1974 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
1975 to that ISP's sites:
1979 forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
1980 forward .example-isp.net .
1988 <sect4><title>forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
1991 <term>Specifies:</term>
1994 Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
1999 <term>Type of value:</term>
2002 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2003 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2004 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2007 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2008 chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
2009 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
2010 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2011 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
2012 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
2017 <term>Default value:</term>
2019 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2023 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2026 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2034 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2037 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2038 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2039 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2042 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2043 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2049 <term>Examples:</term>
2052 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2053 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2054 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2059 forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
2060 forward .example.com .
2064 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2068 forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2076 <sect4><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2079 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2080 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2081 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2082 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2086 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2087 isp-b.net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2088 configuration can look like this:
2098 forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
2109 forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
2114 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2115 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2116 of both isp-a and isp-b.
2120 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2121 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
2122 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2126 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2127 run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
2132 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2133 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2135 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2138 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2139 always_direct allow ftp
2141 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2142 never_direct allow all
2147 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2148 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2155 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2158 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2161 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
2163 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
2164 Windows GUI interface:
2168 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
2169 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
2170 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
2177 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
2184 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2185 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
2193 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
2200 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
2201 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
2202 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
2206 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
2207 eat up all your memory!
2214 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
2221 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
2222 in the log buffer. See above.
2229 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
2236 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2237 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
2238 messages with a bold-faced font:
2245 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
2252 The font used in the console window:
2259 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
2266 Font size used in the console window:
2273 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
2280 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
2281 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
2289 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
2296 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
2297 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
2298 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
2305 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
2312 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
2313 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
2314 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
2331 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2334 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2335 <sect2 id="actionsfile">
2336 <title>The Actions File</title>
2339 The actions file (<filename>default.action</filename>, formerly:
2340 <filename>actionsfile</filename> or <filename>ijb.action</filename>) is used
2341 to define what actions <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which
2342 URLs, and thus determines how ad images, cookies and various other aspects
2343 of HTTP content and transactions are handled on which sites (or even parts
2348 Anything you want can blocked, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious
2349 URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or
2350 accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk),
2351 content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking fooled, and much more.
2352 See below for a complete list of available actions.
2356 An actions file typically has sections. At the top, <quote>aliases</quote> are
2357 defined (discussed below), then the default set of rules which will apply
2358 universally to all sites and pages. And then below that is generally a lengthy
2359 set of exceptions to the defined universal policies.
2362 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2364 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2366 Note that some actions like cookie suppression or script disabling may
2367 render some sites unusable, which rely on these techniques to work properly.
2368 Finding the right mix of actions is not easy and certainly a matter of personal
2369 taste. In general, it can be said that the more <quote>aggressive</quote>
2370 your default settings (in the top section of the actions file) are,
2371 the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you will have to
2372 make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per default, you'll
2373 have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you regularly use
2374 and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe your bank,
2375 favorite shop, or newspaper.
2379 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2380 distribution actions file. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2381 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2382 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter).
2386 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2388 <title>How to Edit</title>
2390 The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
2391 using our browser-based editor, which is available at <ulink
2392 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>.
2396 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2397 <filename>default.action</filename> file.
2403 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
2405 The actions file is divided into sections. There are special sections,
2406 like the alias sections which will be discussed later. For now let's
2407 concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
2408 up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
2409 separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
2410 is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
2414 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2415 compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
2416 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
2417 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
2418 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins.
2422 You can trace this process by visiting <ulink
2423 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2427 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2428 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
2432 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2434 <title>Patterns</title>
2436 Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
2437 where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
2438 are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
2443 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2446 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2447 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
2452 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2455 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2461 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2464 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2465 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2470 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
2473 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2474 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
2479 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2482 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2483 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
2489 <sect4><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2492 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2493 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2499 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2502 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
2503 <literal>.example.com</literal>
2508 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2511 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2512 <literal>www.</literal>
2517 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2520 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
2521 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
2528 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2529 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
2530 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
2531 any single character, you can define character classes in square
2532 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
2537 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2540 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2541 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2546 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2549 matches all of the above, and then some.
2554 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2557 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2558 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2563 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2566 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2567 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2568 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2569 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2577 <sect4><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2580 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
2581 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2586 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2587 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2588 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2589 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2590 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2591 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
2595 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2596 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote>.
2600 Please also note that matching in the path is case
2601 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
2602 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2603 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
2604 <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
2605 documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2606 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2612 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2615 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2617 <sect3 id="actions">
2618 <title>Actions</title>
2620 Actions are enabled if preceded with a <quote>+</quote>, and disabled if
2621 preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. Actions are invoked by enclosing the
2622 action name in curly braces (e.g. {+some_action}), followed by a list of
2623 URLs (or patterns that match URLs) to which the action applies. There are
2624 three classes of actions:
2632 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>on</quote> or
2633 <quote>off</quote>. Examples:
2639 <emphasis>{+name}</emphasis> # enable this action
2640 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action
2650 Parameterized, e.g. <quote>+/-hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</quote>,
2651 where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2658 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and set parameter to <quote>param</quote>
2659 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable action (<quote>parameter</quote>) can be omitted
2668 <!-- oes, or someone, check this. Re-worded 04/20/02 HB. -->
2669 Multi-value, e.g. <quote>{+/-add-header{Name: value}}</quote> ot
2670 <quote>{+/-wafer{name=value}}</quote>), where some value needs to be defined
2671 in addition to simply enabling the actino. Examples:
2677 <emphasis>{+name{param=value}}</emphasis> # enable action and set <quote>param</quote> to <quote>value</quote>
2678 <emphasis>{-name{param=value}}</emphasis> # remove the parameter <quote>param</quote> completely
2679 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action totally and remove <application>param</application> too
2690 If nothing is specified in this file, no <quote>actions</quote> are taken.
2691 So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2692 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically
2693 enable the privacy and blocking features you need (although the
2694 provided default <filename>default.action</filename> file will
2695 give a good starting point).
2699 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2700 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file. For
2701 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are
2705 <!-- start actions listing -->
2707 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>actions</quote> are:
2711 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2712 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2713 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2715 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2718 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2720 <sect4 id="add-header">
2721 <title><emphasis>+add-header{Name: value}</emphasis></title>
2726 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2728 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2733 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2736 Send a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2742 <term>Possible values:</term>
2745 Any value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2751 <term>Example usage:</term>
2754 <emphasis>{+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}}</emphasis>
2755 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2764 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2765 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2766 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2775 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2777 <title><emphasis>+block</emphasis></title>
2782 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2784 <para>Boolean.</para>
2789 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2792 Used to block a URL from reaching your browser. The URL may be
2793 anything, but is typically used to block ads or other obnoxious
2800 <term>Possible values:</term>
2807 <term>Example usage:</term>
2810 <emphasis>{+block}</emphasis>
2811 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2812 <emphasis>.ads.r.us</emphasis>
2821 <application>Privoxy</application> will display its
2822 special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page if a URL matches one of the
2823 blocked patterns. If there is sufficient space, a large red
2824 banner will appear with a friendly message about why the page
2825 was blocked, and a way to go there anyway. If there is insufficient
2826 space a smaller blocked page will appear without the red banner.
2827 One exception is if the URL matches both <quote>+block</quote>
2828 and <quote>+image</quote>, then it can be handled by
2829 <quote>+image-blocker</quote> (see below).
2838 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2839 <sect4 id="deanimate-gifs">
2840 <title><emphasis>+deanimate-gifs</emphasis></title>
2845 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2847 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2852 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2855 To stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.
2861 <term>Possible values:</term>
2864 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2870 <term>Example usage:</term>
2873 <emphasis>{+deanimate-gifs{last}}</emphasis>
2874 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2883 De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
2884 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2885 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2886 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2887 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2888 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2889 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2897 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2898 <sect4 id="downgrade">
2899 <title><emphasis>+downgrade</emphasis></title>
2904 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2906 <para>Boolean.</para>
2911 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2914 <quote>+downgrade</quote> will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to
2915 HTTP/1.0 and downgrade the responses as well.
2921 <term>Possible values:</term>
2930 <term>Example usage:</term>
2933 <emphasis>{+downgrade}</emphasis>
2934 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2943 Use this action for servers that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that
2944 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1 is
2945 only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests. This is
2946 an infrequently needed action, and is used to help with problem sites only.
2954 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2955 <sect4 id="fast-redirects">
2956 <title><emphasis>+fast-redirects</emphasis></title>
2961 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2963 <para>Boolean.</para>
2968 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2971 The <quote>+fast-redirects</quote> action enables interception of
2972 <quote>redirect</quote> requests from one server to another, which
2973 are used to track users.<application>Privoxy</application> can cut off
2974 all but the last valid URL in redirect request and send a local redirect
2975 back to your browser without contacting the intermediate site(s).
2981 <term>Possible values:</term>
2990 <term>Example usage:</term>
2993 <emphasis>{+fast-redirects}</emphasis>
2994 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3003 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3004 will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
3005 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3006 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3007 <emphasis>http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else</emphasis>.
3010 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3011 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3012 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3013 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3014 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3018 This is a normally on feature, and often requires exceptions for sites that
3019 are sensitive to defeating this mechanism.
3028 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3030 <title><emphasis>+filter</emphasis></title>
3035 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3037 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3042 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3045 Apply page filtering as defined by named sections of the
3046 <filename>default.filter</filename> file to the specified site(s).
3047 <quote>Filtering</quote> can be any modification of the raw
3048 page content, including re-writing or deletion.
3054 <term>Possible values:</term>
3057 <quote>+filter</quote> must include the name of one of the section identifiers
3058 from <filename>default.filter</filename> (or whatever
3059 <emphasis>filterfile</emphasis> is specified in <filename>config</filename>).
3065 <term>Example usage (from the current <filename>default.filter</filename>):</term>
3069 <emphasis>+filter{html-annoyances}</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
3074 <emphasis>+filter{js-annoyances}</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
3079 <emphasis>+filter{content-cookies}</emphasis>: Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content
3084 <emphasis>+filter{popups}</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
3089 <emphasis>+filter{frameset-borders}</emphasis>: Give frames a border and make them resizable
3094 <emphasis>+filter{webbugs}</emphasis>: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
3099 <emphasis>+filter{refresh-tags}</emphasis>: Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)
3104 <emphasis>+filter{fun}</emphasis>: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
3109 <emphasis>+filter{nimda}</emphasis>: Remove Nimda (virus) code.
3114 <emphasis>+filter{banners-by-size}</emphasis>: Kill banners by size (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)
3119 <emphasis>+filter{shockwave-flash}</emphasis>: Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects
3124 <emphasis>+filter{crude-parental}</emphasis>: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
3134 This is potentially a very powerful feature! And requires a knowledge
3135 of regular expressions if you want to <quote>roll your own</quote>.
3138 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3139 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3140 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3141 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3142 noticeable on slower connections.
3151 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3152 <sect4 id="hide-forwarded">
3153 <title><emphasis>+hide-forwarded</emphasis></title>
3158 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3160 <para>Boolean.</para>
3165 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3168 Block any existing X-Forwarded-for HTTP header, and do not add a new one.
3174 <term>Possible values:</term>
3183 <term>Example usage:</term>
3186 <emphasis>{+hide-forwarded}</emphasis>
3187 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3196 It is fairly safe to leave this on. It does not seem to break many sites.
3205 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3206 <sect4 id="hide-from">
3207 <title><emphasis>+hide-from</emphasis></title>
3212 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3214 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3219 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3222 To block the browser from sending your email address in a <quote>From:</quote>
3229 <term>Possible values:</term>
3232 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
3238 <term>Example usage:</term>
3241 <emphasis>{+hide-from{block}}</emphasis>
3242 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3251 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header.
3252 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to send to the web
3262 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3263 <sect4 id="hide-referer">
3264 <title><emphasis>+hide-referer</emphasis></title>
3265 <anchor id="hide-referrer">
3270 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3272 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3277 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3280 Don't send the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header to the web site.
3281 Or, alternately send a forged header instead.
3287 <term>Possible values:</term>
3290 Prevent the header from being sent with the keyword, <quote>block</quote>.
3291 Or, <quote>forge</quote> a URL to one from the same server as the request.
3292 Or, set to user defined value of your choice.
3298 <term>Example usage:</term>
3301 <emphasis>{+hide-referer{forge}}</emphasis>
3302 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3311 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
3312 not send images back otherwise.
3315 <quote>+hide-referrer</quote> is an alternate spelling of
3316 <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. It has the exact same parameters, and can be freely
3317 mixed with, <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3318 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3319 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3328 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3329 <sect4 id="hide-user-agent">
3330 <title><emphasis>+hide-user-agent</emphasis></title>
3335 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3337 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3342 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3345 To change the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> header so web servers can't tell
3346 your browser type. Who's business is it anyway?
3352 <term>Possible values:</term>
3355 Any user defined string.
3361 <term>Example usage:</term>
3364 <emphasis>{+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}}</emphasis>
3365 <emphasis>.msn.com</emphasis>
3374 Warning! This breaks many web sites that depend on this in order
3375 to determine how the target browser will respond to various
3376 requests. Use with caution.
3384 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3386 <title><emphasis>+image</emphasis></title>
3391 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3393 <para>Boolean.</para>
3398 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3401 To define what <application>Privoxy</application> should treat
3402 automatically as an image.
3408 <term>Possible values:</term>
3417 <term>Example usage:</term>
3420 <emphasis>{+image}</emphasis>
3421 <emphasis>/.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)</emphasis>
3430 This only has meaning if the URL (or pattern) also is
3431 <quote>+block</quote>ed, in which case a <quote>blocked</quote> image can
3432 be sent rather than a HTML page. (See <quote>+image-blocker{}</quote> below
3433 for the control over what is actually sent.)
3436 There is little reason to change the default definition for this.
3445 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3446 <sect4 id="image-blocker">
3447 <title><emphasis>+image-blocker</emphasis></title>
3452 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3454 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3459 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3462 Decide what to do with URLs that end up tagged with both <quote>{+block}</quote>
3463 and <quote>{+image}</quote>, e.g an advertisement.
3469 <term>Possible values:</term>
3472 There are four available options: <quote>-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML
3473 <quote>blocked</quote> page, usually resulting in a <quote>broken
3474 image</quote> icon. <quote>+image-blocker{blank}</quote> will send a 1x1
3475 transparent GIF image. <quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a
3476 checkerboard type pattern (the default). And finally,
3477 <quote>+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}</quote> will send a HTTP temporary
3478 redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the icon being
3479 being cached by the browser, which will speed up the display.
3485 <term>Example usage:</term>
3488 <emphasis>{+image-blocker{blank}}</emphasis>
3489 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3498 If you want <emphasis>invisible</emphasis> ads, they need to be both
3499 defined as <emphasis>images</emphasis> and <emphasis>blocked</emphasis>.
3500 And then, <quote>image-blocker</quote> should be set to
3501 <quote>blank</quote> for invisibility. Note you cannot treat HTML pages as
3502 images in most cases. For instance, frames require an HTML page to display.
3503 So a frame that is an ad, cannot be treated as an image. Forcing an
3504 <quote>image</quote> in this situation just will not work.
3512 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3513 <sect4 id="limit-connect">
3514 <title><emphasis>+limit-connect</emphasis></title>
3519 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3521 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3526 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3529 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
3530 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
3531 <quote>+limit-connect</quote> to disable this altogether, or to allow
3538 <term>Possible values:</term>
3541 Any valid port number, or port number range.
3547 <term>Example usages:</term>
3549 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3550 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3552 <emphasis>+limit-connect{443}</emphasis> # This is the default and need not be specified.
3553 <emphasis>+limit-connect{80,443}</emphasis> # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3554 <emphasis>+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-}</emphasis> # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3563 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3564 (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy connects
3565 to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits its
3566 connections to the client <emphasis>and</emphasis> to the remote proxy.
3567 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3568 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3571 If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
3572 CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
3573 port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
3577 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3586 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3587 <sect4 id="no-compression">
3588 <title><emphasis>+no-compression</emphasis></title>
3593 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3595 <para>Boolean.</para>
3600 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3603 Prevent the specified websites from compressing HTTP data.
3609 <term>Possible values:</term>
3618 <term>Example usage:</term>
3621 <emphasis>{+no-compression}</emphasis>
3622 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3631 Some websites do this, which can be a problem for
3632 <application>Privoxy</application>, since <quote>+filter</quote>,
3633 <quote>+no-popup</quote> and <quote>+gif-deanimate</quote> will not work
3634 on compressed data. This will slow down connections to those websites,
3635 though. Default typically is to turn <quote>no-compression</quote> on.
3643 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3644 <sect4 id="no-cookies-keep">
3645 <title><emphasis>+no-cookies-keep</emphasis></title>
3650 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3652 <para>Boolean.</para>
3657 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3660 Allow cookies for the current browser session only.
3666 <term>Possible values:</term>
3675 <term>Example usage:</term>
3678 <emphasis>{+no-cookies-keep}</emphasis>
3679 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3688 If websites set cookies, <quote>no-cookies-keep</quote> will make sure
3689 they are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
3690 profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3691 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3692 sites. Sometimes referred to as <quote>session cookies</quote>.
3701 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3702 <sect4 id="no-cookies-read">
3703 <title><emphasis>+no-cookies-read</emphasis></title>
3708 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3710 <para>Boolean.</para>
3715 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3718 Explicitly prevent the web server from reading any cookies on your
3725 <term>Possible values:</term>
3734 <term>Example usage:</term>
3737 <emphasis>{+no-cookies-read}</emphasis>
3738 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3747 Often used in conjunction with <quote>+no-cookies-set</quote> to
3748 disable persistant cookies completely.
3757 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3758 <sect4 id="no-cookies-set">
3759 <title><emphasis>+no-cookies-set</emphasis></title>
3764 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3766 <para>Boolean.</para>
3771 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3774 Explicitly block the web server from sending cookies to your
3781 <term>Possible values:</term>
3790 <term>Example usage:</term>
3793 <emphasis>{+no-cookies-set}</emphasis>
3794 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3803 Often used in conjunction with <quote>+no-cookies-read</quote> to
3804 disable persistant cookies completely.
3813 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3814 <sect4 id="no-popup">
3815 <title><emphasis>+no-popup</emphasis></title>
3816 <anchor id="no-popups">
3821 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3823 <para>Boolean.</para>
3828 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3831 Stop those annoying JavaScript pop-up windows!
3837 <term>Possible values:</term>
3846 <term>Example usage:</term>
3849 <emphasis>{+no-popup}</emphasis>
3850 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3859 <quote>+no-popup</quote> uses a built in filter to disable pop-ups
3860 that use the <literal>window.open()</literal> function, etc.
3863 An alternate spelling is <quote>+no-popups</quote>, which is
3873 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3874 <sect4 id="vanilla-wafer">
3875 <title><emphasis>+vanilla-wafer</emphasis></title>
3880 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3882 <para>Boolean.</para>
3887 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3890 Sends a cookie for every site stating that you do not accept any copyright
3891 on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track you.
3897 <term>Possible values:</term>
3906 <term>Example usage:</term>
3909 <emphasis>{+vanilla-wafer}</emphasis>
3910 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3919 This action only applies if you are using a <filename>jarfile</filename>
3920 for saving cookies. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header and
3921 could be used to track you.
3930 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3932 <title><emphasis>+wafer</emphasis></title>
3937 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3939 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3944 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3947 This allows you to send an arbitrary, user definable cookie.
3953 <term>Possible values:</term>
3956 User specified cookie name and corresponding value.
3962 <term>Example usage:</term>
3965 <emphasis>{+wafer{name=value}}</emphasis>
3966 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3975 This can be specified multiple times in order to add as many cookies as you
3985 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3986 <sect4 id="act-examples" renderas="sect3">
3987 <title>Actions Examples</title>
3989 Note that the meaning of any of the above examples is reversed by preceding
3990 the action with a <quote>-</quote>, in place of the <quote>+</quote>. Also,
3991 that some actions are turned on in the default section of the actions file,
3992 and require little to no additional configuration. These are just <quote>on</quote>.
3993 Some actions that are turned on the default section do typically require
3994 exceptions to be listed in the lower sections of actions file.
4002 Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified sites:
4009 # Turn off all persistent cookies
4010 { +no-cookies-read }
4013 # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
4014 { +no-cookies-keep }
4016 # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
4017 # that saved from one browser session to the next.
4018 { -no-cookies-read }
4020 { -no-cookies-keep }
4027 # Alternative way of saying the same thing
4028 {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
4037 Now turn off <quote>fast redirects</quote>, and then we allow two exceptions:
4047 # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
4049 www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
4057 Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections
4058 of <filename>default.filter</filename>, and make one exception for
4066 # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
4067 # specified sections:
4068 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
4069 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
4071 # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
4073 .cvs.sourceforge.net
4080 Now some URLs that we want <quote>blocked</quote> (normally generates
4081 the <quote>blocked</quote> banner). Many of these use
4082 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> that will expand to match
4083 multiple URLs: </para>
4091 /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
4092 /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
4093 /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
4094 /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
4095 /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
4096 /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
4098 /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
4099 /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
4103 /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
4107 /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
4108 /.*/images/addver\.gif
4109 /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
4113 /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
4114 /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
4121 /graphics/defaultAd/
4123 /image\.ng/transactionID
4124 /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
4125 /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
4129 /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
4130 /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
4132 /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
4140 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
4141 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
4142 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
4143 content he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules
4144 for all sites. See the <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link>
4145 for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
4151 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4154 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4156 <title>Aliases</title>
4158 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
4159 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other <quote>actions</quote>.
4160 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in <quote>actions</quote>.
4161 Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, <quote>=</quote>,
4162 <quote>{</quote> or <quote>}</quote>. But please use only <quote>a</quote>-
4163 <quote>z</quote>, <quote>0</quote>-<quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and
4164 <quote>-</quote>. Alias names are not case sensitive, and
4165 <emphasis>must be defined before anything</emphasis> else in the
4166 <filename>default.action</filename>file! And there can only be one set of
4167 <quote>aliases</quote> defined.
4171 Now let's define a few aliases:
4178 # Useful custom aliases we can use later. These must come first!
4180 +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
4181 -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
4182 fragile = -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -no-popups
4183 shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
4184 +imageblock = +block +image
4186 #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
4189 c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
4190 c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
4191 #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
4198 Some examples using our <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote>
4206 # These sites are very complex and require
4207 # minimal interference.
4209 .office.microsoft.com
4210 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
4213 # Shopping sites - but we still want to block ads.
4216 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4220 # These shops require pop-ups also
4230 The <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> aliases are often used for
4231 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require most actions to be disabled
4232 in order to function properly.
4239 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4242 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4243 <sect2 id="filterfile">
4244 <title>The Filter File</title>
4246 Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
4247 modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
4248 including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
4249 <filename>default.filter</filename>, located in the config directory.
4253 This is potentially a very powerful feature, and requires knowledge of both
4254 <quote>regular expression</quote> and HTML in order create custom
4255 filters. But, there are a number of useful filters included with
4256 <application>Privoxy</application> for many common situations.
4260 The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins
4261 with the <literal>FILTER</literal> keyword, followed by the identifier
4262 for that section, e.g. <quote>FILTER: webbugs</quote>. Each section performs
4263 a similar type of filtering, such as <quote>html-annoyances</quote>.
4267 This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the
4268 target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some
4269 examples from the included default <filename>default.filter</filename>:
4273 Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
4274 deleting such references:
4281 FILTER: html-annoyances
4283 # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
4286 s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
4287 s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
4288 s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
4289 s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
4291 # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
4293 s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
4297 #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
4298 #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
4305 Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of <quote>Microsoft</quote> with
4306 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>, and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
4315 s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
4319 s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></font>/ig
4326 Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
4333 # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
4336 s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
4344 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4348 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4351 <title>Templates</title>
4353 When <application>Privoxy</application> displays one of its internal
4354 pages, such as a 404 Not Found error page, it uses the appropriate template.
4355 On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these are located in
4356 <filename>/etc/privoxy/templates</filename> by default. These may be
4357 customized, if desired. <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> is
4358 used to control the HTML attributes (fonts, etc).
4361 The default <quote>Blocked</quote> banner page with the bright red top
4362 banner, is called just <quote><filename>blocked</filename></quote>. This
4363 may be customized or replaced with something else if desired.
4370 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4374 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4376 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
4379 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
4381 <!-- end boilerplate -->
4384 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4385 <sect2 id="submitactions">
4386 <title>Submitting Ads and <quote>Action</quote> Problems</title>
4388 Ads and banners that are not stopped by <application>Privoxy</application>
4389 can be submitted to the developers by accessing a special page and filling
4390 out the brief, required form. Conversely, you can also report pages, images,
4391 etc. that <application>Privoxy</application> is blocking, but should not.
4392 The form itself does require Internet access.
4395 To do this, point your browser to <application>Privoxy</application>
4396 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
4397 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>), and then select
4398 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions','Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Actions file feedback system</ulink>,
4399 near the bottom of the page. Paste in the URL that is the cause of the
4400 unwanted behavior, and follow the prompts. The developers will
4401 try to incorporate a fix for the problem you reported into future versions.
4405 New <filename>default.actions</filename> files will occasionally be made
4406 available based on your feedback. These
4407 will be announced on the
4409 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce">ijbswa-announce</ulink>
4417 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4418 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
4420 <sect2><title>Copyright</title>
4421 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4423 <!-- end copyright -->
4426 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4429 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4431 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
4432 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
4434 <!-- end history -->
4438 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4439 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
4440 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
4442 <!-- end seealso -->
4447 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4448 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
4451 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4453 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
4455 <application>Privoxy</application> can use <quote>regular expressions</quote>
4456 in various config files. Assuming support for <quote>pcre</quote> (Perl
4457 Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the default. Such
4458 configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but they can be
4459 used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against
4464 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
4465 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
4466 introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
4470 <quote>Regular expressions</quote> is a way of matching one character
4471 expression against another to see if it matches or not. One of the
4472 <quote>expressions</quote> is a literal string of readable characters
4473 (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a complex string of literal
4474 characters combined with wild-cards, and other special characters, called
4475 meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have special meanings and
4476 are used to build the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible
4477 Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
4478 with backward compatibility.
4482 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
4483 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
4484 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
4485 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
4486 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
4487 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
4488 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
4489 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
4493 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
4494 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
4495 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
4496 and then some examples:
4501 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
4502 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
4504 </simplelist></para>
4508 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
4511 </simplelist></para>
4515 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
4518 </simplelist></para>
4522 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
4525 </simplelist></para>
4529 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
4530 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
4531 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
4532 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
4533 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
4534 metacharacter meaning of any single character).
4536 </simplelist></para>
4540 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
4541 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
4542 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
4543 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
4545 </simplelist></para>
4549 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
4550 or multiple sub-expressions.
4552 </simplelist></para>
4556 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
4557 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
4558 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
4559 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
4560 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
4561 example</quote>, and nothing else.
4563 </simplelist></para>
4567 <emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
4568 <quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
4569 example. There must of course be a match on <quote>string1</quote> first.
4571 </simplelist></para>
4574 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
4575 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
4576 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
4577 be more illuminating:
4581 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
4582 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
4583 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
4584 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
4585 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
4586 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
4587 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
4588 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
4589 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
4590 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
4591 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
4592 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
4593 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
4594 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
4599 A now something a little more complex:
4603 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
4604 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
4605 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
4606 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
4607 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
4608 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
4609 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
4614 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
4615 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
4616 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
4617 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
4618 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
4619 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
4620 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
4621 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
4622 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
4623 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
4624 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
4625 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
4626 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
4627 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
4628 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
4629 changing our regular expression to:
4630 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
4635 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
4636 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
4637 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
4638 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
4639 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
4640 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
4641 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
4642 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
4643 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
4644 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
4645 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
4646 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
4647 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
4648 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
4649 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
4650 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
4651 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
4652 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
4653 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
4654 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
4655 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
4656 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
4657 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
4658 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
4659 in the expression anywhere).
4663 <emphasis><literal>s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i</literal></emphasis> - This is
4664 a substitution. <quote>MicroSuck</quote> will replace any occurrence of
4665 <quote>microsoft</quote>. The <quote>i</quote> at the end of the expression
4666 means ignore case. The <quote>(?!.com)</quote> means
4667 the match should fail if <quote>microsoft</quote> is followed by
4668 <quote>.com</quote>. In other words, this acts like a <quote>NOT</quote>
4669 modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
4673 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
4674 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
4675 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
4676 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
4677 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
4682 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
4683 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
4688 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4691 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4693 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
4696 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
4697 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
4698 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
4699 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
4700 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
4701 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
4702 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
4708 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
4709 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
4710 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
4711 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
4724 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
4728 Alternately, this may be reached at <ulink
4729 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, but this
4730 variation may not work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
4736 Show information about the current configuration:
4740 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
4747 Show the source code version numbers:
4751 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
4758 Show the client's request headers:
4762 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
4769 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
4773 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
4780 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
4781 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
4785 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
4789 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
4793 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
4798 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
4805 Edit the actions list file:
4809 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>
4818 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
4822 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
4823 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
4825 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
4826 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
4827 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
4828 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
4829 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
4830 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
4833 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
4834 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
4835 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
4836 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
4837 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
4838 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
4846 <ulink 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());">Enable Privoxy</ulink>
4852 <ulink 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());">Disable Privoxy</ulink>
4858 <ulink 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());">Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
4864 <ulink 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());">View Privoxy Status</ulink>
4870 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions','Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Actions file feedback system</ulink>
4880 Credit: The site which gave me the general idea for these bookmarklets is
4881 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
4882 have more information about bookmarklets.
4891 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4892 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
4893 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
4896 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies <quote>actions</quote>
4897 and <quote>filters</quote> to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
4898 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
4899 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
4900 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
4901 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
4902 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
4903 <quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
4908 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
4909 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
4910 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
4911 and easy way to do this.
4915 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
4916 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
4917 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
4918 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
4922 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
4923 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
4924 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
4925 help with filtering effects from the <filename>default.filter</filename> file! It
4926 also will not tell you about any other URLs that may be embedded within the
4927 URL you are testing (i.e. a web page). For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs
4928 within the raw page source of HTML pages. So you will only get info for the
4929 actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area -- not any sub-URLs. If you
4930 want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you will have to dig those out of
4931 the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View Page Source</quote> option
4932 for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the URL.
4936 Let's look at an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
4937 one section at a time:
4942 System default actions:
4944 { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
4945 -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
4946 -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
4947 -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
4953 This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in defaults. This
4954 is basically what <application>Privoxy</application> would do if there
4955 were not any <quote>actions</quote> defined, i.e. it does nothing. Every action
4956 is disabled. This is not particularly informative for our purposes here. OK,
4963 Matches for http://google.com:
4965 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
4966 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
4967 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
4968 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
4969 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
4970 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
4971 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
4974 { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
4984 This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our
4985 <quote>actions</quote>, and which ones match for our example,
4986 <quote>google.com</quote>. The first grouping shows our default
4987 settings, which would apply to all URLs. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote>
4988 file, this would be the section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section
4989 near the top. This applies to all URLs as signified by the single forward
4990 slash -- <quote>/</quote>.
4995 These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
4996 actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list
4997 specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins.
4998 Just below this then are two explicit matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
4999 The first is negating our various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow
5000 cookies here). The second is allowing <quote>fast-redirects</quote>. Note
5001 that there is a leading dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will
5002 match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
5003 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these actions defined
5004 somewhere in the lower part of our actions file, and
5005 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced in these sections.
5010 And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
5011 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
5012 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
5021 -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
5022 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
5023 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
5024 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5025 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
5026 -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
5033 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
5052 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
5053 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +image</quote>,
5054 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
5055 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<quote>Aliases</quote> are defined in the
5056 first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
5061 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
5062 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
5063 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
5064 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
5065 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
5066 is done here -- as both a <quote>+block</quote> <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
5067 <quote>+image</quote>. The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> does this
5072 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
5073 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
5079 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
5081 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
5082 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
5083 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
5084 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5085 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
5086 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
5087 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
5097 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
5098 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
5099 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
5100 block (-block) pages with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are various ways to
5101 handle such exceptions. Example:
5114 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
5115 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
5119 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
5133 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
5134 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
5135 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
5136 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
5137 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
5138 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
5146 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5155 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
5156 <quote>{ -filter -no-cookies -no-cookies-keep }</quote>. Or you could do
5157 your own exception to negate filtering:
5171 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
5172 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
5173 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
5174 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
5183 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
5184 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
5185 Public License as published by the Free Software
5186 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
5187 your option) any later version.
5189 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
5190 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
5191 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
5192 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
5193 License for more details.
5195 The GNU General Public License should be included with
5196 this file. If not, you can view it at
5197 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
5198 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
5199 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
5201 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
5202 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
5203 Fix ugly typo (mine).
5205 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
5206 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
5208 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
5209 Added RPM install detail
5211 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
5214 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
5215 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
5217 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
5218 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
5220 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
5221 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
5223 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
5226 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
5227 Proofreading, part one
5229 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
5230 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
5231 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
5233 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
5234 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
5236 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
5237 Add small section on submitting actions.
5239 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
5242 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
5243 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
5245 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
5246 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
5248 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
5251 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
5252 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
5253 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
5254 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
5255 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
5257 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
5258 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
5260 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
5261 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
5263 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
5264 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
5265 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
5266 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
5267 eventually be set by Makefile.
5268 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
5270 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
5271 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
5273 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
5274 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
5276 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
5277 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
5279 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
5280 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
5281 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
5282 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
5284 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
5287 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
5288 Added more to Anatomy section.
5290 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
5291 Touch up intro for new name.
5293 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
5294 we have a new homepage!
5296 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
5297 A few minor catch ups with name change.
5299 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
5300 configure needs to be generated.
5302 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
5303 we are too lazy to make a block-built
5304 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
5306 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
5307 name change related issue.
5309 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
5310 name change. changed filenames.
5312 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
5315 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
5316 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
5317 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
5318 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
5319 comments and remarks to history untouched.
5321 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
5324 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
5325 New section in Appendix.
5327 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
5328 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
5330 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
5331 correct feedback channels
5333 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
5334 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
5336 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
5339 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
5340 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
5342 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
5343 Added imageblock{pattern}.
5345 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
5348 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
5349 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
5351 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
5352 provide correct feedback channels
5354 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
5355 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
5357 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
5358 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
5360 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
5361 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
5363 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
5364 Add new - - user option.
5366 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
5367 Added section on command line options.
5369 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
5370 Changed default port to 8118
5372 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
5373 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
5375 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
5376 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
5377 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
5380 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
5383 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
5384 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
5386 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
5387 Update OS/2 build section
5389 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
5390 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
5391 will work - no other changes are needed.
5393 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
5394 Added a very short section on Templates
5396 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
5397 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
5399 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
5400 Touch ups for *.action files.
5402 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
5405 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
5406 Updates for recent changes.
5408 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
5409 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
5411 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
5412 Correct 2 minor errors
5414 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
5415 *** empty log message ***
5417 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
5418 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
5420 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
5421 wrong url in documentation
5423 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
5424 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
5426 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
5429 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
5432 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
5435 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
5436 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
5438 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
5439 Some additions, and re-arranging.
5441 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
5444 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
5445 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
5447 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
5450 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
5451 source files for junkbuster documentation
5453 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
5454 first proposal of a structure.
5456 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
5457 docs should have an author.
5459 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
5460 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob