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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 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 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 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 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 need to remove it. Some platforms do this for you as part
175 of their installation 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> 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 privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
193 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
194 of configuration files.
198 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will not be
199 automatically started on system boot. You will need to enable that using
200 <command>chkconfig</command>, <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar method.
204 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
205 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm;</literal>. This
206 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
210 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
211 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
212 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
213 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
217 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
218 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
224 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
225 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
228 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
229 the installation process.
233 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
234 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
237 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
238 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
244 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
247 First, make sure that no previous installations of
248 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
249 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
250 system. You can do this by
254 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
255 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
256 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
257 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
261 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
262 into will contain all of the configuration files.
266 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
267 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
269 Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file
270 in the finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then,
271 double-click on the package installer icon and follow the installation
273 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the subdirectory
274 <literal>/Applications/Privoxy.app</literal>.
275 <application>Privoxy</application> will set itself up to start
276 automatically on system bringup via
277 <literal>/System/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
281 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
282 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
284 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
285 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
286 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
287 remove this directory.
290 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
291 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
292 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
293 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
294 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
295 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
296 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
301 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
302 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
304 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
306 <!-- end boilerplate -->
311 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
314 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
316 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
319 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
320 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
321 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
323 There are very significant changes from older versions of
324 <application>Junkbuster</application> to the current
325 <application>Privoxy</application>. Configuration is substantially
326 changed. <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> and earlier
327 configuration files will not migrate. The functionality of the old
328 <filename>blockfile</filename>, <filename>cookiefile</filename> and
329 <filename>imagelist</filename>, are now combined into the
330 <quote>actions file</quote> (<filename>default.action</filename>
331 for most installations).
334 A <quote>filter file</quote> (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>)
335 is new as of <application>Privoxy 2.9.x</application>, and provides some
336 of the new sophistication (explained below). <filename>config</filename> is
337 much the same as before.
340 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
341 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
342 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
343 to the new actions file, please note that even the pattern syntax has
344 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
345 recommended to use the new configuration files.
348 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
356 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
362 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
363 important configuration files!
368 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
369 at the special URL: <ulink
370 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
371 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
372 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
373 <application>Privoxy</application>.
378 The primary configuration file for cookie management, ad and banner
379 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
380 configuration is <filename>default.action</filename>. It is strongly
381 recommended to become familiar with the new actions concept below,
382 before modifying this file.
387 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
388 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
389 Some installers may not automatically start
390 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
399 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
401 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
403 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
404 will want to configure your browser(s) to use <application>Privoxy</application>
405 as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is localhost for the proxy address,
406 and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 8000). This is the one
407 configuration step that must be done!
411 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
412 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
413 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
414 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
415 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
416 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
417 localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
421 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
422 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
423 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
424 <application>Privoxy</application>!
429 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
430 main configuration file to be used on the command line. Example Unix startup
437 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
443 See <link linkend="cmdoptions">below</link> for other command line options.
447 An init script is provided for SuSE and Red Hat.
451 For for SuSE: <command>rcprivoxy start</command>
455 For Red Hat and Debian: <command>/etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start</command>
460 If no configuration file is specified on the command line,
461 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
462 <filename>config</filename> in the current directory. Except on Win32 where
463 it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>. If no file is specified on the
464 command line and no default configuration file can be found,
465 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
470 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
471 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
472 <quote>actions</quote> files. These are where various cookie actions are
473 defined, ad and banner blocking, and other aspects of
474 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several such
475 files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
479 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent
480 cookies, and add these to <filename>default.action</filename> as needed. By
481 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
482 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), until you add them to the
483 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
484 to edit <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you
485 use more than one browser, it would make more sense to let
486 <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the
487 browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
491 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
492 sites is the popup-killing (through the <literal>+popup</literal> and
493 <literal>+filter{popups}</literal> actions), because your favorite shopping,
494 banking, or leisure site may need popups.
498 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
499 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
500 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
501 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
502 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
503 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
504 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
505 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
506 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
510 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
511 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
512 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
513 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote> (as specified in <filename>default.action</filename>)
514 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
515 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
516 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
517 and then follow the link to <quote>edit the actions list</quote>.
518 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
522 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
523 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
524 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
525 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
526 to a given URL. In addition to the <filename>default.action</filename> file
527 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
528 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
532 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
533 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
534 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
535 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
536 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
537 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
542 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
543 url="configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
544 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
549 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
550 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
551 chapter "Contacting the Developers, .." below.
557 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
558 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
559 <title>Command Line Options</title>
561 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
562 command-line options:
570 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
573 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
578 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
581 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
586 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
589 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
590 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
595 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
599 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
600 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
601 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
602 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
607 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
611 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
612 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
613 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
618 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
621 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
622 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
623 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
624 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
625 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
626 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
637 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
640 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
641 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
643 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
644 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
645 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
646 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
651 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
654 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
656 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
657 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
658 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
659 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
660 You will see the following section:
667 Please choose from the following options:
670 * Show information about the current configuration
671 * Show the source code version numbers
672 * Show the request headers.
673 * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
674 * Toggle Privoxy on or off
675 * Edit the actions list
681 This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for the
682 <quote>actions list</quote>, which is where much of the ad, banner, cookie,
683 and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
684 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
685 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
686 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
690 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
691 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
692 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
693 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
694 to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled. There
695 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
696 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
702 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
707 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
710 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
712 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
713 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
714 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
715 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
716 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
717 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
721 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though possibly
722 aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are only three
723 default configuration files (this may change in time):
731 The main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>
732 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
739 <filename>default.action</filename> (the actions file) is used to define
740 which of a set of various <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners,
741 pop-ups, access restrictions, banners and cookies are to be applied, and where.
742 There is a web based editor for this file that can be accessed at <ulink
743 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/</ulink>
744 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/edit-actions/">http://p.p/edit-actions/</ulink>).
745 (Other actions files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
746 and blocking, e.g. <filename>basic.action</filename>.)
752 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the filter file) can be used to re-write the raw
753 page content, including viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript,
754 and whatever else lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only
755 pre-defined here; whether to apply them or not is up to the actions file.
763 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
764 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
765 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
766 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
767 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
768 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
773 <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>default.filter</filename>
774 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
779 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
780 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
781 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
782 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
783 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
784 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
785 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
790 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
791 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
792 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
793 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
799 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
802 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
804 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
805 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
806 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
807 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
815 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis>
822 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
823 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
824 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
828 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
829 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
830 for what happens if you leave them unset.
834 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
835 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
836 where you may be surfing).
840 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
843 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
846 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
847 other files for additional configuration and logging.
848 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
849 where to find those other files.
853 <sect4><title>confdir</title>
857 <term>Specifies:</term>
859 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
863 <term>Type of value:</term>
865 <para>Path name</para>
869 <term>Default value:</term>
871 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
875 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
877 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
884 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
887 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
888 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
889 For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
890 <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
891 output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
899 <sect4><title>logdir</title>
903 <term>Specifies:</term>
906 The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
907 <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
912 <term>Type of value:</term>
914 <para>Path name</para>
918 <term>Default value:</term>
920 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
924 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
926 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
933 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
940 <sect4><title>actionsfile</title>
944 <term>Specifies:</term>
947 The actions file to use
952 <term>Type of value:</term>
954 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
958 <term>Default value:</term>
960 <para>default.action (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.action.txt (Windows)</para>
964 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
967 No action is taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
975 There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without
976 an actions file. There are three different actions files included in the
977 distribution, with varying degrees of aggressiveness:
978 <filename>default.action</filename>, <filename>intermediate.action</filename> and
979 <filename>advanced.action</filename>.
986 <sect4><title>filterfile</title>
990 <term>Specifies:</term>
993 The filter file to use
998 <term>Type of value:</term>
1000 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1004 <term>Default value:</term>
1006 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
1010 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1013 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
1014 <literal>+filter{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
1015 actions in the actions file are turned off
1023 The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
1024 that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
1025 changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
1026 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
1027 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
1028 it appears on a Web page.
1035 <sect4><title>logfile</title>
1039 <term>Specifies:</term>
1047 <term>Type of value:</term>
1049 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1053 <term>Default value:</term>
1055 <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
1059 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1062 No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>stderr</literal>).
1070 The windows version will additionally log to the console.
1073 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
1074 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
1075 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
1076 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
1077 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
1080 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
1081 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
1082 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat, a <command>logrotate</command>
1083 script has been included.
1086 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
1087 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
1088 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
1089 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
1096 <sect4><title>jarfile</title>
1100 <term>Specifies:</term>
1103 The file to store intercepted cookies in
1108 <term>Type of value:</term>
1110 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1114 <term>Default value:</term>
1116 <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
1120 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1123 Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
1131 The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
1138 <sect4><title>trustfile</title>
1142 <term>Specifies:</term>
1145 The trust file to use
1150 <term>Type of value:</term>
1152 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1156 <term>Default value:</term>
1158 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
1162 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1165 The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
1173 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
1174 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
1177 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
1178 access to sites that are named in the trustfile.
1179 You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
1180 the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
1181 trusted referrer was used.
1182 The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
1183 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
1186 If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
1195 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1199 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1202 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
1205 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
1206 that just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
1207 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies etc.
1210 <sect4><title>trust-info-url</title>
1214 <term>Specifies:</term>
1217 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
1222 <term>Type of value:</term>
1228 <term>Default value:</term>
1230 <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
1234 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1237 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
1245 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
1246 activated. (See <literal>trustfile</literal> above.)
1249 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
1250 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
1251 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
1254 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
1255 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
1262 <sect4><title>admin-address</title>
1266 <term>Specifies:</term>
1269 An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
1274 <term>Type of value:</term>
1276 <para>Email address</para>
1280 <term>Default value:</term>
1282 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1286 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1289 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1297 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1298 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1306 <sect4><title>proxy-info-url</title>
1310 <term>Specifies:</term>
1313 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
1314 configuration or policies.
1319 <term>Type of value:</term>
1325 <term>Default value:</term>
1327 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1331 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1334 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1342 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1343 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1347 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
1355 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1357 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1360 <title>Debugging</title>
1363 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
1364 Note that you might also want to invoke
1365 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
1366 command line option when debugging.
1369 <sect4><title>debug</title>
1373 <term>Specifies:</term>
1376 Key values that determine what information gets logged.
1381 <term>Type of value:</term>
1383 <para>Integer values</para>
1387 <term>Default value:</term>
1389 <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
1393 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1396 Nothing gets logged.
1404 The available debug levels are:
1408 debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1409 debug 2 # show each connection status
1410 debug 4 # show I/O status
1411 debug 8 # show header parsing
1412 debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
1413 debug 32 # debug force feature
1414 debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
1415 debug 128 # debug fast redirects
1416 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1417 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1418 debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
1419 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1420 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1424 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1425 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
1428 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
1429 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
1430 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
1431 only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
1432 a hell of an output (especially 16).
1436 The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
1437 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1440 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1441 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
1448 <sect4><title>single-threaded</title>
1452 <term>Specifies:</term>
1455 Whether to run only one server thread
1460 <term>Type of value:</term>
1462 <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
1466 <term>Default value:</term>
1468 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1472 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1475 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
1476 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
1484 This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
1485 need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
1494 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1497 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
1500 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
1501 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
1504 <sect4><title>listen-address</title>
1508 <term>Specifies:</term>
1511 The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
1512 listen for client requests.
1517 <term>Type of value:</term>
1519 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1523 <term>Default value:</term>
1525 <para>localhost:8118</para>
1529 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1532 Bind to localhost (127.0.0.1), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
1533 home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
1542 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
1545 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1546 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1547 will need to override the default.
1550 If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
1551 bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
1552 from the Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (acl's)
1553 (see <quote>ACLs</quote> below), or a firewall.
1558 <term>Example:</term>
1561 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
1562 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
1563 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
1564 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
1568 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1576 <sect4><title>toggle</title>
1580 <term>Specifies:</term>
1583 Initial state of "toggle" status
1588 <term>Type of value:</term>
1594 <term>Default value:</term>
1600 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1603 Act as if toggled on
1611 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
1612 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
1613 proxy. See <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal>
1614 below. This is not really useful anymore, since toggling is much easier
1615 via <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web
1616 interface</ulink> then via editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
1619 The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
1620 if this option is present.
1628 <sect4><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
1631 <term>Specifies:</term>
1634 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
1635 feature</ulink> may be used
1640 <term>Type of value:</term>
1646 <term>Default value:</term>
1652 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1655 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
1663 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
1664 content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
1668 For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1669 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1670 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1671 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1672 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
1673 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1676 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1677 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1685 <sect4><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
1688 <term>Specifies:</term>
1691 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">web-based actions
1692 file editor</ulink> may be used
1697 <term>Type of value:</term>
1703 <term>Default value:</term>
1709 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1712 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
1720 For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1721 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1722 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1723 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1724 modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
1725 recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1728 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1729 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1736 <sect4><title>ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
1739 <term>Specifies:</term>
1742 Who can access what.
1747 <term>Type of value:</term>
1750 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
1751 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
1754 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
1755 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
1756 DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
1757 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
1758 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
1759 destination part are optional.
1764 <term>Default value:</term>
1766 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1770 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1773 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
1781 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
1782 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
1783 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
1784 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost or internal (home)
1785 network address by means of the <literal>listen-address</literal> option.
1788 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
1789 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
1793 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
1794 If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
1795 talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
1796 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
1797 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
1800 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
1801 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
1802 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
1803 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1804 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
1805 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1808 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
1809 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
1810 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
1811 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
1814 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
1815 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
1820 <term>Examples:</term>
1823 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1824 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
1825 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
1826 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1830 permit-access localhost
1834 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
1835 nothing but www.example.com:
1839 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1843 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
1844 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
1848 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1849 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1857 <sect4><title>buffer-limit</title>
1861 <term>Specifies:</term>
1864 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
1869 <term>Type of value:</term>
1871 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
1875 <term>Default value:</term>
1881 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1884 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
1892 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
1893 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
1894 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
1895 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
1896 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
1900 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
1901 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
1902 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
1903 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
1904 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
1914 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1917 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1919 <sect3 id="forwarding">
1920 <title>Forwarding</title>
1923 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
1925 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
1926 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
1927 through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
1928 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
1929 Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
1930 proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
1931 runs on has no direct Internet access.
1935 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
1936 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
1939 <sect4><title>forward</title>
1942 <term>Specifies:</term>
1945 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
1950 <term>Type of value:</term>
1953 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1954 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1957 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
1958 chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
1959 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
1960 as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
1961 <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
1962 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
1963 values from 1 to 64535
1968 <term>Default value:</term>
1970 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1974 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1977 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
1985 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
1986 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
1989 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
1994 <term>Examples:</term>
1997 Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
2001 forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
2006 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
2007 to that ISP's sites:
2011 forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
2012 forward .example-isp.net .
2020 <sect4><title>forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
2023 <term>Specifies:</term>
2026 Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
2031 <term>Type of value:</term>
2034 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2035 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2036 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2039 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2040 chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
2041 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
2042 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2043 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
2044 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
2049 <term>Default value:</term>
2051 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2055 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2058 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2066 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2069 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2070 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2071 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2074 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2075 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2081 <term>Examples:</term>
2084 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2085 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2086 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2091 forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
2092 forward .example.com .
2096 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2100 forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2108 <sect4><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2111 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2112 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2113 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2114 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2118 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2119 isp-b.net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2120 configuration can look like this:
2130 forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
2141 forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
2146 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2147 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2148 of both isp-a and isp-b.
2152 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2153 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
2154 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2158 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2159 run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
2164 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2165 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2167 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2170 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2171 always_direct allow ftp
2173 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2174 never_direct allow all
2179 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2180 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2187 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2190 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2193 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
2195 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
2196 Windows GUI interface:
2200 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
2201 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
2202 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
2209 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
2216 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2217 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
2225 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
2232 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
2233 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
2234 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
2238 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
2239 eat up all your memory!
2246 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
2253 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
2254 in the log buffer. See above.
2261 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
2268 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2269 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
2270 messages with a bold-faced font:
2277 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
2284 The font used in the console window:
2291 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
2298 Font size used in the console window:
2305 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
2312 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
2313 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
2321 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
2328 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
2329 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
2330 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
2337 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
2344 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
2345 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
2346 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
2363 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2366 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2367 <sect2 id="actionsfile">
2368 <title>The Actions File</title>
2371 The actions file (<filename>default.action</filename>, formerly:
2372 <filename>actionsfile</filename> or <filename>ijb.action</filename>) is used
2373 to define what actions <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which
2374 URLs, and thus determines how ad images, cookies and various other aspects
2375 of HTTP content and transactions are handled on which sites (or even parts
2380 Anything you want can blocked, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious
2381 URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or
2382 accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk),
2383 content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking fooled, and much more.
2384 See below for a complete list of available actions.
2388 An actions file typically has sections. At the top, <quote>aliases</quote> are
2389 defined (discussed below), then the default set of rules which will apply
2390 universally to all sites and pages. And then below that is generally a lengthy
2391 set of exceptions to the defined universal policies.
2394 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2396 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2398 Note that some actions like cookie suppression or script disabling may
2399 render some sites unusable, which rely on these techniques to work properly.
2400 Finding the right mix of actions is not easy and certainly a matter of personal
2401 taste. In general, it can be said that the more <quote>aggressive</quote>
2402 your default settings (in the top section of the actions file) are,
2403 the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you will have to
2404 make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per default, you'll
2405 have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you regularly use
2406 and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe your bank,
2407 favorite shop, or newspaper.
2411 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2412 distribution actions file. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2413 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2414 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter).
2418 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2420 <title>How to Edit</title>
2422 The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
2423 using our browser-based editor, which is available at <ulink
2424 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>.
2428 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2429 <filename>default.action</filename> file.
2435 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
2437 The actions file is divided into sections. There are special sections,
2438 like the <quote>alias</quote> sections which will be discussed later. For now
2439 let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
2440 up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
2441 separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
2442 is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
2446 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2447 compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
2448 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
2449 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
2450 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins.
2454 You can trace this process by visiting <ulink
2455 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2459 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2460 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
2464 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2466 <title>Patterns</title>
2468 Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
2469 where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
2470 are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
2475 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2478 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2479 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
2484 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2487 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2493 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2496 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2497 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2502 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
2505 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2506 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
2511 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2514 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2515 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
2521 <sect4><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2524 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2525 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2531 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2534 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
2535 <literal>.example.com</literal>
2540 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2543 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2544 <literal>www.</literal>
2549 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2552 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
2553 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
2560 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2561 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
2562 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
2563 any single character, you can define character classes in square
2564 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
2569 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2572 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2573 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2578 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2581 matches all of the above, and then some.
2586 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2589 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2590 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2595 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2598 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2599 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2600 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2601 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2609 <sect4><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2612 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
2613 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2618 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2619 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2620 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2621 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2622 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2623 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
2627 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2628 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote>.
2632 Please also note that matching in the path is case
2633 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
2634 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2635 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
2636 <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
2637 documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2638 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2644 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2647 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2649 <sect3 id="actions">
2650 <title>Actions</title>
2652 Actions are enabled if preceded with a <quote>+</quote>, and disabled if
2653 preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a <quote>+action</quote> means
2654 <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g. <quote>+block</quote> means please
2655 <quote>block the following URLs and/or patterns</quote>. All actions are
2656 disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled somewhere in an actions
2661 Actions are invoked by enclosing the action name in curly braces (e.g.
2662 {+some_action}), followed by a list of URLs (or patterns that match URLs) to
2663 which the action applies. There are three classes of actions:
2671 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>on</quote> or
2672 <quote>off</quote>. Examples:
2678 <emphasis>{+name}</emphasis> # enable this action
2679 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action
2689 Parameterized, e.g. <quote>+/-hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</quote>,
2690 where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2697 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and set parameter to <quote>param</quote>
2698 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable action (<quote>parameter</quote>) can be omitted
2707 <!-- oes, or someone, check this. Re-worded 04/20/02 HB. -->
2708 Multi-value, e.g. <quote>{+/-add-header{Name: value}}</quote> ot
2709 <quote>{+/-wafer{name=value}}</quote>), where some value needs to be defined
2710 in addition to simply enabling the actino. Examples:
2716 <emphasis>{+name{param=value}}</emphasis> # enable action and set <quote>param</quote> to <quote>value</quote>
2717 <emphasis>{-name{param=value}}</emphasis> # remove the parameter <quote>param</quote> completely
2718 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action totally and remove <application>param</application> too
2729 If nothing is specified in this file, no <quote>actions</quote> are taken.
2730 So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2731 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically
2732 enable the privacy and blocking features you need (although the
2733 provided default <filename>default.action</filename> file will
2734 give a good starting point).
2738 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2739 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file. For
2740 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are
2744 <!-- start actions listing -->
2746 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>actions</quote> are:
2750 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2751 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2752 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2754 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2757 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2759 <sect4 id="add-header">
2760 <title><emphasis>+add-header{Name: value}</emphasis></title>
2765 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2767 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2772 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2775 Send a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2781 <term>Possible values:</term>
2784 Any value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2790 <term>Example usage:</term>
2793 <emphasis>{+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}}</emphasis>
2794 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2803 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2804 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2805 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2814 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2816 <title><emphasis>+block</emphasis></title>
2821 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2823 <para>Boolean.</para>
2828 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2831 Used to block a URL from reaching your browser. The URL may be
2832 anything, but is typically used to block ads or other obnoxious
2839 <term>Possible values:</term>
2846 <term>Example usage:</term>
2849 <emphasis>{+block}</emphasis>
2850 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2851 <emphasis>.ads.r.us</emphasis>
2860 <application>Privoxy</application> will display its
2861 special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page if a URL matches one of the
2862 blocked patterns. If there is sufficient space, a large red
2863 banner will appear with a friendly message about why the page
2864 was blocked, and a way to go there anyway. If there is insufficient
2865 space a smaller blocked page will appear without the red banner.
2866 One exception is if the URL matches both <quote>+block</quote>
2867 and <quote>+image</quote>, then it can be handled by
2868 <quote>+image-blocker</quote> (see below).
2871 The <quote>+filter</quote> action can also perform some of the
2872 same functionality as <quote>+block</quote>, but by virtue of very
2873 different programming techniques, and is typically used for different
2883 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2884 <sect4 id="deanimate-gifs">
2885 <title><emphasis>+deanimate-gifs</emphasis></title>
2890 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2892 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2897 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2900 To stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.
2906 <term>Possible values:</term>
2909 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2915 <term>Example usage:</term>
2918 <emphasis>{+deanimate-gifs{last}}</emphasis>
2919 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2928 De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
2929 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2930 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2931 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2932 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2933 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2934 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2942 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2943 <sect4 id="downgrade">
2944 <title><emphasis>+downgrade</emphasis></title>
2949 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2951 <para>Boolean.</para>
2956 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2959 <quote>+downgrade</quote> will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to
2960 HTTP/1.0 and downgrade the responses as well.
2966 <term>Possible values:</term>
2975 <term>Example usage:</term>
2978 <emphasis>{+downgrade}</emphasis>
2979 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2988 Use this action for servers that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that
2989 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1 is
2990 only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests. This is
2991 an infrequently needed action, and is used to help with problem sites only.
2999 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3000 <sect4 id="fast-redirects">
3001 <title><emphasis>+fast-redirects</emphasis></title>
3006 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3008 <para>Boolean.</para>
3013 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3016 The <quote>+fast-redirects</quote> action enables interception of
3017 <quote>redirect</quote> requests from one server to another, which
3018 are used to track users.<application>Privoxy</application> can cut off
3019 all but the last valid URL in redirect request and send a local redirect
3020 back to your browser without contacting the intermediate site(s).
3026 <term>Possible values:</term>
3035 <term>Example usage:</term>
3038 <emphasis>{+fast-redirects}</emphasis>
3039 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3048 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3049 will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
3050 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3051 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3052 <emphasis>http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else</emphasis>.
3055 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3056 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3057 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3058 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3059 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3063 This is a normally on feature, and often requires exceptions for sites that
3064 are sensitive to defeating this mechanism.
3073 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3075 <title><emphasis>+filter</emphasis></title>
3080 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3082 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3087 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3090 Apply page filtering as defined by named sections of the
3091 <filename>default.filter</filename> file to the specified site(s).
3092 <quote>Filtering</quote> can be any modification of the raw
3093 page content, including re-writing or deletion of content.
3099 <term>Possible values:</term>
3102 <quote>+filter</quote> must include the name of one of the section identifiers
3103 from <filename>default.filter</filename> (or whatever
3104 <emphasis>filterfile</emphasis> is specified in <filename>config</filename>).
3110 <term>Example usage (from the current <filename>default.filter</filename>):</term>
3114 <emphasis>+filter{html-annoyances}</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
3119 <emphasis>+filter{js-annoyances}</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
3124 <emphasis>+filter{content-cookies}</emphasis>: Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content
3129 <emphasis>+filter{popups}</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
3134 <emphasis>+filter{frameset-borders}</emphasis>: Give frames a border and make them resizable
3139 <emphasis>+filter{webbugs}</emphasis>: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
3144 <emphasis>+filter{refresh-tags}</emphasis>: Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)
3149 <emphasis>+filter{fun}</emphasis>: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
3154 <emphasis>+filter{nimda}</emphasis>: Remove Nimda (virus) code.
3159 <emphasis>+filter{banners-by-size}</emphasis>: Kill banners by size (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)
3164 <emphasis>+filter{shockwave-flash}</emphasis>: Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects
3169 <emphasis>+filter{crude-parental}</emphasis>: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
3179 This is potentially a very powerful feature! And requires a knowledge
3180 of regular expressions if you want to <quote>roll your own</quote>.
3181 Filtering operates on a line by line basis.
3184 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3185 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3186 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3187 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3188 noticeable on slower connections.
3191 Filtering can achieve some of the effects as the <quote>+block</quote>
3192 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. In the overall
3193 scheme of things, filtering is one of the last things <quote>Privoxy</quote>
3194 does with a web page. So other actions are applied first.
3203 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3204 <sect4 id="hide-forwarded">
3205 <title><emphasis>+hide-forwarded</emphasis></title>
3210 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3212 <para>Boolean.</para>
3217 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3220 Block any existing X-Forwarded-for HTTP header, and do not add a new one.
3226 <term>Possible values:</term>
3235 <term>Example usage:</term>
3238 <emphasis>{+hide-forwarded}</emphasis>
3239 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3248 It is fairly safe to leave this on. It does not seem to break many sites.
3257 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3258 <sect4 id="hide-from">
3259 <title><emphasis>+hide-from</emphasis></title>
3264 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3266 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3271 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3274 To block the browser from sending your email address in a <quote>From:</quote>
3281 <term>Possible values:</term>
3284 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
3290 <term>Example usage:</term>
3293 <emphasis>{+hide-from{block}}</emphasis>
3294 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3303 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header.
3304 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to send to the web
3314 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3315 <sect4 id="hide-referer">
3316 <title><emphasis>+hide-referer</emphasis></title>
3317 <anchor id="hide-referrer">
3322 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3324 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3329 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3332 Don't send the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header to the web site.
3333 Or, alternately send a forged header instead.
3339 <term>Possible values:</term>
3342 Prevent the header from being sent with the keyword, <quote>block</quote>.
3343 Or, <quote>forge</quote> a URL to one from the same server as the request.
3344 Or, set to user defined value of your choice.
3350 <term>Example usage:</term>
3353 <emphasis>{+hide-referer{forge}}</emphasis>
3354 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3363 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
3364 not send images back otherwise.
3367 <quote>+hide-referrer</quote> is an alternate spelling of
3368 <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. It has the exact same parameters, and can be freely
3369 mixed with, <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3370 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3371 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3380 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3381 <sect4 id="hide-user-agent">
3382 <title><emphasis>+hide-user-agent</emphasis></title>
3387 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3389 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3394 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3397 To change the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> header so web servers can't tell
3398 your browser type. Who's business is it anyway?
3404 <term>Possible values:</term>
3407 Any user defined string.
3413 <term>Example usage:</term>
3416 <emphasis>{+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}}</emphasis>
3417 <emphasis>.msn.com</emphasis>
3426 Warning! This breaks many web sites that depend on this in order
3427 to determine how the target browser will respond to various
3428 requests. Use with caution.
3436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3438 <title><emphasis>+image</emphasis></title>
3443 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3445 <para>Boolean.</para>
3450 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3453 To define what <application>Privoxy</application> should treat
3454 automatically as an image.
3460 <term>Possible values:</term>
3469 <term>Example usage:</term>
3472 <emphasis>{+image}</emphasis>
3473 <emphasis>/.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)</emphasis>
3482 This only has meaning if the URL (or pattern) also is
3483 <quote>+block</quote>ed, in which case a <quote>blocked</quote> image can
3484 be sent rather than a HTML page. (See <quote>+image-blocker{}</quote> below
3485 for the control over what is actually sent.)
3488 There is little reason to change the default definition for this.
3497 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3498 <sect4 id="image-blocker">
3499 <title><emphasis>+image-blocker</emphasis></title>
3504 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3506 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3511 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3514 Decide what to do with URLs that end up tagged with both <quote>{+block}</quote>
3515 and <quote>{+image}</quote>, e.g an advertisement.
3521 <term>Possible values:</term>
3524 There are four available options: <quote>-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML
3525 <quote>blocked</quote> page, usually resulting in a <quote>broken
3526 image</quote> icon. <quote>+image-blocker{blank}</quote> will send a 1x1
3527 transparent GIF image. <quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a
3528 checkerboard type pattern (the default). And finally,
3529 <quote>+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}</quote> will send a HTTP temporary
3530 redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the icon being
3531 being cached by the browser, which will speed up the display.
3537 <term>Example usage:</term>
3540 <emphasis>{+image-blocker{blank}}</emphasis>
3541 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3550 If you want <emphasis>invisible</emphasis> ads, they need to be both
3551 defined as <emphasis>images</emphasis> and <emphasis>blocked</emphasis>.
3552 And then, <quote>image-blocker</quote> should be set to
3553 <quote>blank</quote> for invisibility. Note you cannot treat HTML pages as
3554 images in most cases. For instance, frames require an HTML page to display.
3555 So a frame that is an ad, cannot be treated as an image. Forcing an
3556 <quote>image</quote> in this situation just will not work.
3564 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3565 <sect4 id="limit-connect">
3566 <title><emphasis>+limit-connect</emphasis></title>
3571 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3573 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3578 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3581 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
3582 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
3583 <quote>+limit-connect</quote> to disable this altogether, or to allow
3590 <term>Possible values:</term>
3593 Any valid port number, or port number range.
3599 <term>Example usages:</term>
3601 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3602 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3604 <emphasis>+limit-connect{443}</emphasis> # This is the default and need not be specified.
3605 <emphasis>+limit-connect{80,443}</emphasis> # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3606 <emphasis>+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-}</emphasis> # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3615 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3616 (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy connects
3617 to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits its
3618 connections to the client <emphasis>and</emphasis> to the remote proxy.
3619 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3620 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3623 If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
3624 CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
3625 port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
3629 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3638 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3639 <sect4 id="no-compression">
3640 <title><emphasis>+no-compression</emphasis></title>
3645 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3647 <para>Boolean.</para>
3652 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3655 Prevent the specified websites from compressing HTTP data.
3661 <term>Possible values:</term>
3670 <term>Example usage:</term>
3673 <emphasis>{+no-compression}</emphasis>
3674 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3683 Some websites do this, which can be a problem for
3684 <application>Privoxy</application>, since <quote>+filter</quote>,
3685 <quote>+no-popup</quote> and <quote>+gif-deanimate</quote> will not work
3686 on compressed data. This will slow down connections to those websites,
3687 though. Default typically is to turn <quote>no-compression</quote> on.
3695 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3696 <sect4 id="no-cookies-keep">
3697 <title><emphasis>+no-cookies-keep</emphasis></title>
3702 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3704 <para>Boolean.</para>
3709 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3712 Allow cookies for the current browser session only.
3718 <term>Possible values:</term>
3727 <term>Example usage:</term>
3730 <emphasis>{+no-cookies-keep}</emphasis>
3731 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3740 If websites set cookies, <quote>no-cookies-keep</quote> will make sure
3741 they are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
3742 profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3743 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3744 sites. Sometimes referred to as <quote>session cookies</quote>.
3753 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3754 <sect4 id="no-cookies-read">
3755 <title><emphasis>+no-cookies-read</emphasis></title>
3760 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3762 <para>Boolean.</para>
3767 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3770 Explicitly prevent the web server from reading any cookies on your
3777 <term>Possible values:</term>
3786 <term>Example usage:</term>
3789 <emphasis>{+no-cookies-read}</emphasis>
3790 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3799 Often used in conjunction with <quote>+no-cookies-set</quote> to
3800 disable persistant cookies completely.
3809 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3810 <sect4 id="no-cookies-set">
3811 <title><emphasis>+no-cookies-set</emphasis></title>
3816 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3818 <para>Boolean.</para>
3823 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3826 Explicitly block the web server from sending cookies to your
3833 <term>Possible values:</term>
3842 <term>Example usage:</term>
3845 <emphasis>{+no-cookies-set}</emphasis>
3846 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3855 Often used in conjunction with <quote>+no-cookies-read</quote> to
3856 disable persistant cookies completely.
3865 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3866 <sect4 id="no-popup">
3867 <title><emphasis>+no-popup</emphasis></title>
3868 <anchor id="no-popups">
3873 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3875 <para>Boolean.</para>
3880 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3883 Stop those annoying JavaScript pop-up windows!
3889 <term>Possible values:</term>
3898 <term>Example usage:</term>
3901 <emphasis>{+no-popup}</emphasis>
3902 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3911 <quote>+no-popup</quote> uses a built in filter to disable pop-ups
3912 that use the <literal>window.open()</literal> function, etc.
3915 An alternate spelling is <quote>+no-popups</quote>, which is
3925 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3926 <sect4 id="vanilla-wafer">
3927 <title><emphasis>+vanilla-wafer</emphasis></title>
3932 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3934 <para>Boolean.</para>
3939 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3942 Sends a cookie for every site stating that you do not accept any copyright
3943 on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track you.
3949 <term>Possible values:</term>
3958 <term>Example usage:</term>
3961 <emphasis>{+vanilla-wafer}</emphasis>
3962 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3971 This action only applies if you are using a <filename>jarfile</filename>
3972 for saving cookies. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header and
3973 could be used to track you.
3982 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3984 <title><emphasis>+wafer</emphasis></title>
3989 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3991 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3996 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3999 This allows you to send an arbitrary, user definable cookie.
4005 <term>Possible values:</term>
4008 User specified cookie name and corresponding value.
4014 <term>Example usage:</term>
4017 <emphasis>{+wafer{name=value}}</emphasis>
4018 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
4027 This can be specified multiple times in order to add as many cookies as you
4037 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4038 <sect4 id="act-examples" renderas="sect3">
4039 <title>Actions Examples</title>
4041 Note that the meaning of any of the above examples is reversed by preceding
4042 the action with a <quote>-</quote>, in place of the <quote>+</quote>. Also,
4043 that some actions are turned on in the default section of the actions file,
4044 and require little to no additional configuration. These are just <quote>on</quote>.
4045 Some actions that are turned on the default section do typically require
4046 exceptions to be listed in the lower sections of actions file.
4054 Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified sites:
4061 # Turn off all persistent cookies
4062 { +no-cookies-read }
4065 # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
4066 { +no-cookies-keep }
4068 # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
4069 # that saved from one browser session to the next.
4070 { -no-cookies-read }
4072 { -no-cookies-keep }
4079 # Alternative way of saying the same thing
4080 {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
4089 Now turn off <quote>fast redirects</quote>, and then we allow two exceptions:
4099 # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
4101 www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
4109 Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections
4110 of <filename>default.filter</filename>, and make one exception for
4118 # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
4119 # specified sections:
4120 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
4121 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
4123 # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
4125 .cvs.sourceforge.net
4132 Now some URLs that we want <quote>blocked</quote> (normally generates
4133 the <quote>blocked</quote> banner). Many of these use
4134 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> that will expand to match
4135 multiple URLs: </para>
4143 /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
4144 /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
4145 /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
4146 /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
4147 /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
4148 /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
4150 /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
4151 /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
4155 /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
4159 /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
4160 /.*/images/addver\.gif
4161 /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
4165 /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
4166 /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
4173 /graphics/defaultAd/
4175 /image\.ng/transactionID
4176 /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
4177 /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
4181 /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
4182 /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
4184 /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
4192 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
4193 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
4194 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
4195 content he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules
4196 for all sites. See the <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link>
4197 for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
4203 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4206 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4208 <title>Aliases</title>
4210 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
4211 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other <quote>actions</quote>.
4212 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in <quote>actions</quote>.
4213 Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, <quote>=</quote>,
4214 <quote>{</quote> or <quote>}</quote>. But please use only <quote>a</quote>-
4215 <quote>z</quote>, <quote>0</quote>-<quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and
4216 <quote>-</quote>. Alias names are not case sensitive, and
4217 <emphasis>must be defined before anything</emphasis> else in the
4218 <filename>default.action</filename>file! And there can only be one set of
4219 <quote>aliases</quote> defined.
4223 Now let's define a few aliases:
4230 # Useful custom aliases we can use later. These must come first!
4232 +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
4233 -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
4234 fragile = -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -no-popups
4235 shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
4236 +imageblock = +block +image
4238 #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
4241 c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
4242 c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
4243 #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
4250 Some examples using our <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote>
4258 # These sites are very complex and require
4259 # minimal interference.
4261 .office.microsoft.com
4262 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
4265 # Shopping sites - but we still want to block ads.
4268 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4272 # These shops require pop-ups also
4282 The <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> aliases are often used for
4283 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require most actions to be disabled
4284 in order to function properly.
4291 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4294 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4295 <sect2 id="filterfile">
4296 <title>The Filter File</title>
4298 Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
4299 modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
4300 including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
4301 <filename>default.filter</filename>, located in the config directory.
4305 This is potentially a very powerful feature, and requires knowledge of both
4306 <quote>regular expression</quote> and HTML in order create custom
4307 filters. But, there are a number of useful filters included with
4308 <application>Privoxy</application> for many common situations.
4312 The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins
4313 with the <literal>FILTER</literal> keyword, followed by the identifier
4314 for that section, e.g. <quote>FILTER: webbugs</quote>. Each section performs
4315 a similar type of filtering, such as <quote>html-annoyances</quote>.
4319 This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the
4320 target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some
4321 examples from the included default <filename>default.filter</filename>:
4325 Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
4326 deleting such references:
4333 FILTER: html-annoyances
4335 # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
4338 s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
4339 s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
4340 s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
4341 s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
4343 # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
4345 s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
4349 #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
4350 #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
4357 Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of <quote>Microsoft</quote> with
4358 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>, and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
4367 s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
4371 s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></font>/ig
4378 Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
4385 # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
4388 s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
4396 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4400 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4403 <title>Templates</title>
4405 When <application>Privoxy</application> displays one of its internal
4406 pages, such as a 404 Not Found error page, it uses the appropriate template.
4407 On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these are located in
4408 <filename>/etc/privoxy/templates</filename> by default. These may be
4409 customized, if desired. <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> is
4410 used to control the HTML attributes (fonts, etc).
4413 The default <quote>Blocked</quote> banner page with the bright red top
4414 banner, is called just <quote><filename>blocked</filename></quote>. This
4415 may be customized or replaced with something else if desired.
4422 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4426 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4428 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
4431 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
4433 <!-- end boilerplate -->
4436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4437 <sect2 id="submitactions">
4438 <title>Submitting Ads and <quote>Action</quote> Problems</title>
4440 Ads and banners that are not stopped by <application>Privoxy</application>
4441 can be submitted to the developers by accessing a special page and filling
4442 out the brief, required form. Conversely, you can also report pages, images,
4443 etc. that <application>Privoxy</application> is blocking, but should not.
4444 The form itself does require Internet access.
4447 To do this, point your browser to <application>Privoxy</application>
4448 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
4449 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>), and then select
4450 <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>,
4451 near the bottom of the page. Paste in the URL that is the cause of the
4452 unwanted behavior, and follow the prompts. The developers will
4453 try to incorporate a fix for the problem you reported into future versions.
4457 New <filename>default.actions</filename> files will occasionally be made
4458 available based on your feedback. These
4459 will be announced on the
4461 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce">ijbswa-announce</ulink>
4469 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4470 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
4472 <sect2><title>Copyright</title>
4473 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4475 <!-- end copyright -->
4478 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4481 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4483 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
4484 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
4486 <!-- end history -->
4490 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4491 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
4492 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
4494 <!-- end seealso -->
4499 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4500 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
4503 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4505 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
4507 <application>Privoxy</application> can use <quote>regular expressions</quote>
4508 in various config files. Assuming support for <quote>pcre</quote> (Perl
4509 Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the default. Such
4510 configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but they can be
4511 used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against
4516 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
4517 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
4518 introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
4522 <quote>Regular expressions</quote> is a way of matching one character
4523 expression against another to see if it matches or not. One of the
4524 <quote>expressions</quote> is a literal string of readable characters
4525 (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a complex string of literal
4526 characters combined with wild-cards, and other special characters, called
4527 meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have special meanings and
4528 are used to build the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible
4529 Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
4530 with backward compatibility.
4534 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
4535 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
4536 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
4537 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
4538 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
4539 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
4540 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
4541 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
4545 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
4546 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
4547 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
4548 and then some examples:
4553 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
4554 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
4556 </simplelist></para>
4560 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
4563 </simplelist></para>
4567 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
4570 </simplelist></para>
4574 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
4577 </simplelist></para>
4581 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
4582 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
4583 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
4584 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
4585 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
4586 metacharacter meaning of any single character).
4588 </simplelist></para>
4592 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
4593 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
4594 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
4595 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
4597 </simplelist></para>
4601 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
4602 or multiple sub-expressions.
4604 </simplelist></para>
4608 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
4609 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
4610 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
4611 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
4612 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
4613 example</quote>, and nothing else.
4615 </simplelist></para>
4619 <emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
4620 <quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
4621 example. There must of course be a match on <quote>string1</quote> first.
4623 </simplelist></para>
4626 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
4627 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
4628 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
4629 be more illuminating:
4633 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
4634 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
4635 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
4636 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
4637 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
4638 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
4639 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
4640 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
4641 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
4642 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
4643 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
4644 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
4645 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
4646 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
4651 A now something a little more complex:
4655 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
4656 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
4657 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
4658 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
4659 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
4660 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
4661 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
4666 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
4667 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
4668 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
4669 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
4670 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
4671 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
4672 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
4673 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
4674 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
4675 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
4676 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
4677 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
4678 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
4679 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
4680 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
4681 changing our regular expression to:
4682 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
4687 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
4688 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
4689 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
4690 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
4691 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
4692 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
4693 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
4694 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
4695 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
4696 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
4697 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
4698 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
4699 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
4700 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
4701 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
4702 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
4703 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
4704 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
4705 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
4706 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
4707 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
4708 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
4709 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
4710 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
4711 in the expression anywhere).
4715 <emphasis><literal>s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i</literal></emphasis> - This is
4716 a substitution. <quote>MicroSuck</quote> will replace any occurrence of
4717 <quote>microsoft</quote>. The <quote>i</quote> at the end of the expression
4718 means ignore case. The <quote>(?!.com)</quote> means
4719 the match should fail if <quote>microsoft</quote> is followed by
4720 <quote>.com</quote>. In other words, this acts like a <quote>NOT</quote>
4721 modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
4725 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
4726 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
4727 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
4728 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
4729 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
4734 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
4735 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
4740 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4743 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4745 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
4748 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
4749 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
4750 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
4751 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
4752 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
4753 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
4754 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
4760 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
4761 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
4762 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
4763 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
4776 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
4780 Alternately, this may be reached at <ulink
4781 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, but this
4782 variation may not work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
4788 Show information about the current configuration:
4792 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
4799 Show the source code version numbers:
4803 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
4810 Show the client's request headers:
4814 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
4821 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
4825 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
4832 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
4833 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
4837 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
4841 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
4845 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
4850 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
4857 Edit the actions list file:
4861 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>
4870 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
4874 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
4875 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
4877 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
4878 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
4879 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
4880 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
4881 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
4882 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
4885 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
4886 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
4887 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
4888 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
4889 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
4890 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
4898 <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>
4904 <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>
4910 <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)
4916 <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>
4922 <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>
4932 Credit: The site which gave me the general idea for these bookmarklets is
4933 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
4934 have more information about bookmarklets.
4943 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4945 <title>Chain of Events</title>
4947 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
4948 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
4955 First, the web browser requests a page, and this request is intercepted by
4956 <application>Privoxy</application> immediately.
4961 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for internal CGI
4962 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and relays these back to the browser.
4967 If the URL matches a <quote>+block</quote> pattern, then it is blocked
4968 and the banner displayed.
4973 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
4974 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
4979 <quote>+fast-redirect</quote> is processed, stripping unwanted parts
4980 of the request web page URL.
4985 At this point, <application>Privoxy</application> relays the request to the
4986 web server, and requests the page (assuming nothing up to this point has
4987 prevented getting us from this far).
4992 The first few hundred bytes are read from the web server and
4993 <quote>+kill-popups</quote> is processed, if enabled.
4998 If <quote>+filter</quote> applies, the rest of the page is read into
4999 memory and then the filters are processed. Filters are applied in the order they
5000 are specified in the <filename>default.filter</filename> file. The entire
5001 page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
5002 <application>Privoxy</application> to your browser.
5007 As the browser receives the filtered page content, it will read and request any
5008 embedded URLs on the page, e.g. an ad image. As the browser requests these
5009 secondary URLs from whatever server they may be on,
5010 <application>Privoxy</application> handles these same as above, and the process
5011 is repeated for each such URL. Note that a fancy web page may have many, many
5012 such URLs for graphics, frames, etc.
5022 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5023 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
5024 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
5027 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies <quote>actions</quote>
5028 and <quote>filters</quote> to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
5029 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
5030 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
5031 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
5032 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
5033 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
5034 <quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
5039 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
5040 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
5041 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
5042 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterwards!).
5046 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
5047 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5048 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
5049 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
5053 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
5054 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
5055 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
5056 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <quote>+filter</quote> action) from the
5057 <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very differently
5058 and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other URLs that
5059 may be embedded within the URL you are testing (i.e. a web page). For
5060 instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source
5061 of HTML pages. So you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted
5062 into the prompt area -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded
5063 URLs like ads, you will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your
5064 browser's <quote>View Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on
5065 the ad, and grab the URL.
5069 Let's look at an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
5070 one section at a time:
5075 System default actions:
5077 { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
5078 -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
5079 -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
5080 -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
5086 This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in defaults. This
5087 is basically what <application>Privoxy</application> would do if there
5088 were not any <quote>actions</quote> defined, i.e. it does nothing. Every action
5089 is disabled. This is not particularly informative for our purposes here. OK,
5096 Matches for http://google.com:
5098 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
5099 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
5100 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
5101 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5102 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
5103 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
5104 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
5107 { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
5117 This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our
5118 <quote>actions</quote>, and which ones match for our example,
5119 <quote>google.com</quote>. The first grouping shows our default
5120 settings, which would apply to all URLs. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote>
5121 file, this would be the section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section
5122 near the top. This applies to all URLs as signified by the single forward
5123 slash -- <quote>/</quote>.
5128 These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
5129 actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list
5130 specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins.
5131 Just below this then are two explicit matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
5132 The first is negating our various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow
5133 cookies here). The second is allowing <quote>fast-redirects</quote>. Note
5134 that there is a leading dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will
5135 match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
5136 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these actions defined
5137 somewhere in the lower part of our actions file, and
5138 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced in these sections.
5143 And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
5144 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
5145 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
5154 -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
5155 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
5156 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
5157 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5158 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
5159 -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
5166 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
5185 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
5186 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +image</quote>,
5187 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
5188 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<quote>Aliases</quote> are defined in the
5189 first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
5194 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
5195 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
5196 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
5197 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
5198 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
5199 is done here -- as both a <quote>+block</quote> <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
5200 <quote>+image</quote>. The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> does this
5205 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
5206 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
5212 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
5214 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
5215 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
5216 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
5217 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5218 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
5219 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
5220 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
5230 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
5231 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
5232 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
5233 block (-block) pages with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are various ways to
5234 handle such exceptions. Example:
5247 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
5248 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
5252 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
5266 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
5267 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
5268 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
5269 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
5270 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
5271 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
5279 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5288 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
5289 <quote>{ -filter -no-cookies -no-cookies-keep }</quote>. Or you could do
5290 your own exception to negate filtering:
5304 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
5305 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
5306 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
5307 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
5316 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
5317 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
5318 Public License as published by the Free Software
5319 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
5320 your option) any later version.
5322 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
5323 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
5324 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
5325 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
5326 License for more details.
5328 The GNU General Public License should be included with
5329 this file. If not, you can view it at
5330 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
5331 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
5332 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
5334 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
5335 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
5336 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
5338 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
5339 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
5341 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
5342 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
5344 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
5345 Updated OSX installation section
5346 Added a few English tweaks here an there
5348 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
5349 Re-write actions section.
5351 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
5352 Fix ugly typo (mine).
5354 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
5355 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
5357 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
5358 Added RPM install detail
5360 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
5363 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
5364 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
5366 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
5367 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
5369 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
5370 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
5372 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
5375 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
5376 Proofreading, part one
5378 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
5379 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
5380 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
5382 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
5383 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
5385 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
5386 Add small section on submitting actions.
5388 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
5391 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
5392 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
5394 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
5395 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
5397 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
5400 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
5401 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
5402 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
5403 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
5404 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
5406 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
5407 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
5409 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
5410 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
5412 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
5413 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
5414 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
5415 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
5416 eventually be set by Makefile.
5417 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
5419 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
5420 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
5422 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
5423 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
5425 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
5426 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
5428 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
5429 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
5430 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
5431 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
5433 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
5436 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
5437 Added more to Anatomy section.
5439 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
5440 Touch up intro for new name.
5442 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
5443 we have a new homepage!
5445 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
5446 A few minor catch ups with name change.
5448 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
5449 configure needs to be generated.
5451 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
5452 we are too lazy to make a block-built
5453 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
5455 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
5456 name change related issue.
5458 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
5459 name change. changed filenames.
5461 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
5464 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
5465 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
5466 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
5467 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
5468 comments and remarks to history untouched.
5470 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
5473 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
5474 New section in Appendix.
5476 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
5477 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
5479 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
5480 correct feedback channels
5482 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
5483 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
5485 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
5488 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
5489 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
5491 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
5492 Added imageblock{pattern}.
5494 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
5497 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
5498 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
5500 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
5501 provide correct feedback channels
5503 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
5504 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
5506 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
5507 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
5509 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
5510 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
5512 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
5513 Add new - - user option.
5515 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
5516 Added section on command line options.
5518 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
5519 Changed default port to 8118
5521 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
5522 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
5524 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
5525 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
5526 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
5529 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
5532 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
5533 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
5535 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
5536 Update OS/2 build section
5538 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
5539 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
5540 will work - no other changes are needed.
5542 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
5543 Added a very short section on Templates
5545 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
5546 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
5548 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
5549 Touch ups for *.action files.
5551 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
5554 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
5555 Updates for recent changes.
5557 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
5558 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
5560 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
5561 Correct 2 minor errors
5563 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
5564 *** empty log message ***
5566 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
5567 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
5569 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
5570 wrong url in documentation
5572 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
5573 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
5575 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
5578 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
5581 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
5584 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
5585 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
5587 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
5588 Some additions, and re-arranging.
5590 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
5593 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
5594 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
5596 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
5599 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
5600 source files for junkbuster documentation
5602 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
5603 first proposal of a structure.
5605 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
5606 docs should have an author.
5608 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
5609 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob