1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.7">
15 <!entity p-status "beta">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
30 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
33 This file belongs into
34 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
36 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil Exp $
38 Copyright (C) 2001-2007 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
41 ========================================================================
42 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
43 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
44 ========================================================================
51 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
55 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
56 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
57 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001 - 2007 by
58 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
62 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
66 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
67 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
68 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
69 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
82 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
83 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
84 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
90 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
91 install, configure and use <ulink
92 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
95 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
97 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
100 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
101 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
102 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
103 contact the developers.
107 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
113 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
114 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
116 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
117 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
118 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
119 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
120 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
121 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
122 earlier versions. ]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to the core
139 features of ad blocking and
140 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
141 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
142 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
143 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
145 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
152 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
156 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
159 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
160 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
161 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
162 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
168 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
169 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
170 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
171 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
183 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
186 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
187 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
188 of configuration files.
192 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
193 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
194 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
195 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
199 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
200 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
201 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
205 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
206 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
207 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
208 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
213 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
215 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
216 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
221 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
222 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
225 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
226 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
227 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
230 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
231 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
232 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
233 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
237 <term>Arguments:</term>
240 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
243 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
249 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
250 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
251 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
252 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
253 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
254 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
255 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
256 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
257 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
258 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
259 write to its log and configuration files.
264 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
265 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
268 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
269 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
270 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
274 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
275 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
278 First, make sure that no previous installations of
279 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
280 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
281 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
282 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
288 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
289 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
290 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
291 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
295 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
296 into will contain all of the configuration files.
300 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
301 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
303 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
304 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
305 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
306 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
307 and follow the installation process.
308 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
309 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
310 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
311 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
312 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
315 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
316 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
317 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
318 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
322 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
326 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
330 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
331 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
333 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
334 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
335 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
336 remove this directory.
340 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
341 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
344 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
345 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
348 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
349 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
352 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
353 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
354 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
355 beta releases which are only available there.
359 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
360 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
362 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
363 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
364 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
365 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
368 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
369 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
370 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
374 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
375 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
376 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
382 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
383 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
386 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
387 is to download the source tarball from our
388 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
393 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
394 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
395 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
396 CVS repository</ulink>.
398 deprecated...out of business.
399 or simply download <ulink
400 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
405 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
407 <!-- end boilerplate -->
410 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
411 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
413 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
414 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
415 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
416 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
421 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
422 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
423 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
424 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
428 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
429 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
430 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
431 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
432 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
433 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
441 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
443 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
444 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
445 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
447 There are many improvements and new features since <application>Privoxy 3.0.6</application>, the last stable release:
454 Two new actions <link
455 linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link>
457 linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link>
458 that can be used to create arbitrary <quote>tags</quote>
459 based on client and server headers.
460 These <quote>tags</quote> can then subsequently be used
461 to control the other actions used for the current request,
462 greatly increasing &my-app;'s flexibility and selectivity. See <link
463 linkend="tag-pattern">tag patterns</link> for more information on tags.
469 Header filtering is done with dedicated header filters now. As a result
470 the actions <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and <quote>filter-server-headers</quote>
471 that were introduced with <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply
472 content filters to the headers have been removed.
473 See the new actions <link
474 linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link>
476 linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link> for details.
481 There are four new options for the main <filename>config</filename> file:
488 linkend="allow-cgi-request-crunching">allow-cgi-request-crunching</link>
489 which allows requests for Privoxy's internal CGI pages to be
490 blocked, redirected or (un)trusted like ordinary requests.
496 linkend="split-large-forms">split-large-forms</link>
497 that will work around a browser bug that caused IE6 and IE7 to
498 ignore the Submit button on the Privoxy's edit-actions-for-url CGI
505 linkend="accept-intercepted-requests">accept-intercepted-requests</link>
506 which allows to combine Privoxy with any packet filter to create an
507 intercepting proxy for HTTP/1.1 requests (and for HTTP/1.0 requests
508 with Host header set). This means clients can be forced to use
509 &my-app; even if their proxy settings are configured differently.
515 linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
516 to designate an alternate location for &my-app;'s
517 locally customized CGI templates so that
518 these are not overwritten during upgrades.
526 A new command line option <literal>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</literal> to
527 initialize the resolver library before chroot'ing. On some systems this
528 reduces the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
529 (Patch provided by Stephen Gildea)
536 linkend="forward-override">forward-override</link> action
537 allows changing of the forwarding settings through the actions files.
538 Combined with tags, this allows to choose the forwarder based on
539 client headers like the <literal>User-Agent</literal>, or the request origin.
546 linkend="redirect">redirect</link> action can now use regular
547 expression substitutions against the original URL.
553 <application>zlib</application> support is now available as a compile
554 time option to filter compressed content. Patch provided by Wil Mahan.
559 Improve various filters, and add new ones.
566 Include support for RFC 3253 so that <filename>Subversion</filename> works
567 with &my-app;. Patch provided by Petr Kadlec.
573 Logging can be completely turned off by not specifying a logfile directive.
580 A number of improvements to Privoxy's internal CGI pages, including the
581 use of favicons for error and control pages.
587 Many bugfixes, memory leaks addressed, code improvements, and logging
593 <!-- pre-3.0.6 changes:
596 There are a number of new <link linkend="actions-file">actions</link>:
604 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>
609 <literal><link linkend="crunch-client-header">crunch-client-header</link></literal>
614 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>
619 <literal><link linkend="crunch-server-header">crunch-server-header</link></literal>
624 <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
629 <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
634 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>
639 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>
644 <literal><link linkend="hide-accept-language">hide-accept-language</link></literal>
649 <literal><link linkend="hide-content-disposition">hide-content-disposition</link></literal>
654 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
659 <literal><link linkend="inspect-jpegs">inspect-jpegs</link></literal>
664 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
669 <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal>
674 <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
681 In addition, <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects</link></literal>
682 has been significantly improved with enhanced syntax.
685 And <literal><link linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal>
686 has a new option, <literal>conditional block</literal>.
693 <application>MS-Windows</application> versions can now be
695 linkend="installation-pack-win">installed and
696 started as a <emphasis>Windows service</emphasis></link>.
702 <filename>config</filename> has two new options:
704 linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
706 linkend="forwarded-connect-retries">forwarded-connect-retries</link>.
709 And there is improved handling of the <link
710 linkend="user-manual">user-manual</link>
711 option, for placing documentation and help files on the local system.
717 There are six new <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>.
723 Actions files problems and suggestions are now being directed to:
724 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288</ulink>.
725 Please use this to report such configuration related problems as missed
726 ads, sites that don't function properly due to one action or another,
727 innocent images being blocked, etc.
733 In addition, there are numerous bug fixes and significant enhancements,
734 including error pages should no longer be cached if the problem is fixed,
735 much better DNS error handling, various logging improvements, and
736 configuration updates for better ad blocking and junk elimination.
744 For a more detailed list of changes please have a look at the ChangeLog.
747 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
749 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
750 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
753 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
754 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
762 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
763 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
764 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
765 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
768 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
769 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
770 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
771 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
772 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
777 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
778 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
779 any important configuration files!
784 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
785 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
790 <filename>standard.action</filename> now only includes the enabled actions.
791 Not all actions as before.
796 Logging is off by default now. If you need logging, it can be turned on
797 in the <link linkend="logfile">config file</link>. You may also want
798 to enable logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version
799 is working as expected.
805 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
806 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
807 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
808 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
809 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
810 be aware of the security issues involved.
816 The <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and
817 <quote>filter-server-headers</quote> actions that were introduced with
818 <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply content filters to
819 the headers have been removed and replaced with new actions.
821 linkend="whatsnew">What's New section</link> above.
829 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
830 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
831 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
832 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
833 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
834 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
835 settings as yet (see above).
842 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
843 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
844 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
845 standards and past practices. See <ulink
846 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
847 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
848 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
854 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
855 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
856 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
857 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
861 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
865 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
866 to turn off compression for all sites in
867 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
868 <filename>user.action</filename>).
875 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
876 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
877 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
884 Some installers may not automatically start
885 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
896 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
897 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
903 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
904 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
911 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
912 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
913 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
914 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
921 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
922 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
923 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
929 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
930 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
931 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
932 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
933 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
934 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
935 browser from using these protocols.
941 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
942 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
943 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
944 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
950 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
951 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
952 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
953 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
955 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
956 Be sure to read the warnings first.
959 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
960 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
961 You might also want to look at the <link
962 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
963 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
970 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
971 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
972 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
973 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
974 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
975 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
976 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
977 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
978 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
979 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
984 Did anyone test these lately?
988 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
989 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
997 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
998 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
1005 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
1013 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1015 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
1016 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
1018 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
1019 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
1022 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1023 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
1024 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
1027 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
1028 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
1029 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
1032 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
1033 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
1034 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
1035 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
1036 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
1037 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
1038 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
1039 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
1040 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
1041 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
1042 habits and preferences.
1045 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
1046 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
1047 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
1048 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
1049 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
1050 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
1051 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
1052 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
1053 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
1054 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
1057 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1058 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
1059 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
1060 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
1061 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
1064 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
1065 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1066 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
1067 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
1068 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
1069 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
1070 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
1071 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
1072 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
1073 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
1074 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
1079 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
1080 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
1081 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
1083 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
1084 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
1092 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
1093 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
1094 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
1095 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
1096 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
1097 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
1098 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
1099 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
1105 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
1106 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
1107 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
1108 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
1109 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
1110 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
1111 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
1112 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
1113 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
1114 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
1115 an entire HTML page in most situations.
1121 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
1122 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1123 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
1124 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
1131 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
1132 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
1133 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
1134 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
1135 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
1136 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
1139 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
1143 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
1144 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
1149 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
1150 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
1155 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
1156 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
1165 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
1166 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
1167 are very different from <literal><link
1168 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
1169 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
1170 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
1171 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
1172 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
1173 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
1174 some pitfalls to be wary off.
1178 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
1179 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
1180 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1181 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
1182 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
1186 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
1187 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
1188 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
1189 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
1190 cases it's safe to enable again.
1194 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
1195 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
1196 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
1197 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
1198 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
1199 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
1200 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
1201 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
1205 A quick and simple step by step example:
1213 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
1214 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1222 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1227 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1228 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1231 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1233 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1236 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1239 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1248 You should have a section with only
1249 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1250 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1251 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1252 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1253 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1254 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1255 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1256 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1257 just below the list.
1262 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1263 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1264 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1265 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1266 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1267 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1272 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1273 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1281 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1282 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1283 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1284 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1289 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1290 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1291 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1294 There are also various
1295 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1296 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1297 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1298 depth in later sections.
1305 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1308 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1309 <sect1 id="startup">
1310 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1312 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1313 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1314 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1315 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1316 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1317 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1321 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1322 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1325 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1327 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1328 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1331 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1334 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1342 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1346 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1351 Or optionally on some platforms:
1355 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1361 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1362 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1367 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1368 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1369 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1374 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-6</application>:
1378 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1382 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1383 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1384 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1385 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1386 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1389 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1391 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1392 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1395 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1398 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1406 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1407 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1408 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1409 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1410 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1411 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1415 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1416 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1417 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1418 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1419 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1422 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1423 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1425 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1426 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1431 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1439 # service privoxy start
1444 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1445 <title>Debian</title>
1447 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1448 default. It will use the file
1449 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1454 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1460 omitting 10/31/06 HB
1462 <sect2 id="start-suse">
1465 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
1466 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
1476 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1477 <title>Windows</title>
1479 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1480 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1481 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1482 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1486 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1487 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1488 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1489 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1490 instructions</link> for details.
1494 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1495 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1497 Example Unix startup command:
1501 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1506 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1509 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1510 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1511 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1512 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1516 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1517 <title>Mac OSX</title>
1519 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1520 start automatically when the system restarts. To start &my-app; manually,
1521 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
1522 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
1527 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
1531 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1536 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1537 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1539 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1540 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1541 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1542 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1543 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1544 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1545 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1549 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1550 <title>Gentoo</title>
1552 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1553 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1557 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1561 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1562 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1567 rc-update add privoxy default
1575 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1579 must find a better place for this paragraph
1582 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1583 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1584 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1585 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1586 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1587 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1591 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1592 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1593 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1594 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1595 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1596 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1597 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1598 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1599 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1603 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1604 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1605 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1607 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1608 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1609 popups (explained below).
1613 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1614 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1615 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1616 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1617 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1618 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1619 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1620 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1621 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1625 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1626 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1627 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1628 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1629 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1630 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1631 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1632 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1633 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1637 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1638 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1639 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1640 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1641 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1642 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1643 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1647 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1648 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1649 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1650 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1651 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1652 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1657 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1658 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1659 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1664 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1665 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1666 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1667 Developers</quote></link> below.
1672 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1673 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1674 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1676 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1677 command-line options:
1685 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1688 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1693 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1696 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1701 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1704 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1705 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1710 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1713 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1714 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1715 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1716 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1721 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1724 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1725 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1726 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1731 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1734 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1735 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1736 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1737 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1743 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1746 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1747 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1748 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1749 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1752 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1753 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1754 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1755 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1761 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1764 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1765 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1766 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1767 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1768 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1769 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1777 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1778 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1779 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1780 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1788 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1791 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1792 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1794 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1795 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1796 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1797 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1801 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1804 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1806 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1807 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1808 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1809 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1810 You will see the following section:
1814 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1817 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1821 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1824 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1827 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1830 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1833 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1836 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/
1837 &p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1845 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1846 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1847 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1848 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1849 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1850 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1854 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1855 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1856 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1857 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1858 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1859 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1860 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1861 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1866 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1867 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1869 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1870 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1875 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1880 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1882 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1883 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1885 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1886 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1887 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1888 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1889 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1890 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1894 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1895 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1896 principle configuration files are:
1904 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1905 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1906 on Windows. This is a required file.
1912 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1913 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1914 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1915 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1916 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1917 as many websites as possible.
1920 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1921 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1922 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1923 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1924 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1925 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1926 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is only for
1927 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1930 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1932 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1934 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1935 various actions files.
1941 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1942 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1943 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1944 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1945 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1946 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1947 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1948 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1949 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1950 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1951 locally defined filters or customizations.
1959 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
1960 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
1961 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
1965 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1966 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1967 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1968 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1969 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1970 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1971 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1975 The actions files and filter files
1976 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1977 maximum flexibility.
1981 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1982 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1983 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1984 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1985 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1986 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1987 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1992 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1993 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1994 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1995 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
2001 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2004 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2006 <!-- **************************************************** -->
2007 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
2008 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
2010 <!-- end include -->
2013 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2017 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2019 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2022 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
2023 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
2024 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2025 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
2026 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
2027 Each action does something a little different.
2028 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
2029 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
2030 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
2034 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
2042 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
2043 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
2044 provide a base level of functionality for
2045 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
2046 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well as-is for most users.
2047 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
2048 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
2049 The user's preferences as set in <filename>standard.action</filename>,
2050 e.g. either <literal>Cautious</literal> (the default),
2051 <literal>Medium</literal>, or <literal>Advanced</literal> (see
2057 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2058 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
2059 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
2060 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
2065 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used only by the web based editor
2066 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
2067 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>,
2068 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
2069 in <filename>default.action</filename>.
2072 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
2075 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
2076 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
2077 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
2078 <literal>Cautious</literal> (versions prior to 3.0.5 were set to
2079 <literal>Medium</literal>). New users should try this for a while before
2080 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
2081 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
2082 not working as they should.
2085 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
2086 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
2087 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
2088 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
2089 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
2090 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
2091 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
2092 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
2093 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
2094 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
2095 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
2096 lower sections of this internal page.
2099 It is not recommend to edit the <filename>standard.action</filename> file
2103 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
2104 <filename>standard.action</filename> are<!-- different than this table which is out of date -->:
2107 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
2108 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
2109 <colspec colname=c1>
2110 <colspec colname=c2>
2111 <colspec colname=c3>
2112 <colspec colname=c4>
2115 <entry>Feature</entry>
2116 <entry>Cautious</entry>
2117 <entry>Medium</entry>
2118 <entry>Advanced</entry>
2123 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
2124 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
2125 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
2126 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
2132 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
2133 <entry>medium</entry>
2139 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
2146 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
2152 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
2153 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2154 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2155 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2159 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
2161 <entry>medium</entry>
2162 <entry>medium/high</entry>
2166 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
2168 <entry>session-only</entry>
2173 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
2181 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
2189 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
2196 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
2203 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
2210 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
2217 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
2233 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2234 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
2235 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
2236 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2238 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2239 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2240 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2241 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2242 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2243 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2244 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2245 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2249 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2250 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2251 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2252 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2253 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2254 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2255 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2256 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2257 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2258 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2259 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2260 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2264 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2265 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2266 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2267 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2268 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2272 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2274 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2276 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2277 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2278 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2279 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2280 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2281 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2282 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2283 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2284 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2285 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2286 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2290 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2291 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2292 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2293 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2297 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2299 <title>How to Edit</title>
2301 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2302 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2303 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2304 Note: the config file option <link
2305 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2306 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2307 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2308 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2309 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2310 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2311 Experienced users only!
2315 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2316 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2317 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2323 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2324 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2326 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2327 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2328 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2329 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2330 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2331 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2335 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2336 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2337 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2338 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2339 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2343 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2344 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2345 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2346 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2347 then later another one with just <literal>{
2348 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2349 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2350 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2356 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block</literal> }
2357 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2359 media.example.com/.*banners
2360 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2364 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
2365 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2369 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2370 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2374 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2375 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2376 <title>Patterns</title>
2378 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2379 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2380 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2381 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2382 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2383 against many similar patterns.
2387 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
2388 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
2389 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
2390 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
2391 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
2392 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
2393 the pattern. This is assumed already!
2396 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2397 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2398 while the path part uses a more flexible
2399 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2400 Expressions (PCRE)</quote></ulink> based syntax.
2405 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2408 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2409 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2410 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2411 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2416 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2419 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2425 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2428 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2429 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2434 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2437 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2438 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2443 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2446 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2447 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2452 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2455 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2456 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2464 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2465 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2468 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2469 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2475 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2478 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
2479 <literal>.example.com</literal>
2484 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2487 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2488 <literal>www.</literal>
2493 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2496 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2497 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2498 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2499 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2500 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2501 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2502 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2510 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2511 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2512 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2514 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2515 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2516 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2517 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2518 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2519 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2524 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2527 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2528 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2533 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2536 matches all of the above, and then some.
2541 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2544 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2545 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2550 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2553 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2554 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2555 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2556 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2563 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2568 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2571 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2572 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2575 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible (PCRE)
2576 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2577 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax
2578 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2579 matching the path portion (after the slash), and is thus more flexible.
2583 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2584 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2585 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2586 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2587 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2588 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>.
2592 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2593 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2594 for the beginning of a line).
2598 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2599 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2600 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2601 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2602 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2607 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2610 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2611 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2612 regular expression. This is redundant
2617 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2620 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2621 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2622 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2623 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2624 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2625 requirement. It also would match
2626 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2627 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2632 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2635 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2636 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2637 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2638 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2643 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2646 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2647 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2648 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2649 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2654 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2657 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2658 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2659 one is limited to common image formats.
2666 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2667 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2672 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2675 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2676 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2679 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2680 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2681 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2682 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2686 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2687 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2688 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2689 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2690 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2691 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2695 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2696 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2697 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2698 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2699 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2703 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2704 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2705 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2709 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2710 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2711 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2712 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2716 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2717 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2718 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2719 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2720 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2721 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2722 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2723 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2724 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2728 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2729 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2730 make too much sense.
2737 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2740 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2742 <sect2 id="actions">
2743 <title>Actions</title>
2745 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2746 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2747 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2748 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2749 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2750 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2751 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2752 previously applied.</quote>
2757 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2758 separated by whitespace, like in
2759 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2760 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2761 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2762 of the actions file.
2766 Actions fall into three categories:
2773 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2774 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2778 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2779 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2782 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
2789 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2794 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2795 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2796 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2799 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2800 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2803 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
2809 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2810 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2811 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2812 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2813 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2814 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2818 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2819 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2820 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2821 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2824 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2825 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2833 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2834 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2835 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2836 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2837 files will give a good starting point).
2841 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2842 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2843 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2844 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2845 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2846 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2847 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2848 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2849 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2853 <!-- start actions listing -->
2855 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2859 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2860 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2861 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2863 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2866 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2868 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2869 <title>add-header</title>
2873 <term>Typical use:</term>
2875 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2880 <term>Effect:</term>
2883 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2890 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2892 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2897 <term>Parameter:</term>
2900 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2901 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2911 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2912 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2913 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2920 <term>Example usage:</term>
2923 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2931 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2932 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2933 <title>block</title>
2937 <term>Typical use:</term>
2939 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2944 <term>Effect:</term>
2947 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2948 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2949 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2951 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2953 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2955 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2963 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2965 <para>Boolean.</para>
2970 <term>Parameter:</term>
2980 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2981 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2982 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2983 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2984 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2985 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2986 right now, you can take a look at the
2987 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2991 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2992 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2993 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2994 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2995 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2996 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2999 It is important to understand this process, in order
3000 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3001 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
3002 upon which various other features depend.
3005 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3006 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3007 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3008 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3009 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3015 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3019 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3020 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3022 {+block +handle-as-image}
3023 # Block and replace with image
3027 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
3028 # Block and then ignore
3029 adserver.exampleclick.net/.*\.js$</screen>
3039 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3040 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
3041 <title>client-header-filter</title>
3045 <term>Typical use:</term>
3048 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
3054 <term>Effect:</term>
3057 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3058 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3065 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3067 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3072 <term>Parameter:</term>
3075 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
3076 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3085 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
3086 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3087 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
3088 You can do that by using tags though.
3091 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
3092 and use their output as input.
3095 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
3096 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
3104 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3108 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
3119 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3120 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
3121 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
3125 <term>Typical use:</term>
3128 Block requests based on their headers.
3134 <term>Effect:</term>
3137 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3138 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
3146 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3148 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3153 <term>Parameter:</term>
3156 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
3157 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3166 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
3167 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
3171 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
3172 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
3178 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3182 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
3183 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
3194 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3195 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3196 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3200 <term>Typical use:</term>
3202 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3207 <term>Effect:</term>
3210 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3217 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3219 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3224 <term>Parameter:</term>
3236 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3237 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3238 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3239 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3240 supported by the browser.
3243 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3244 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3245 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3246 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3247 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3250 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3251 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3252 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3253 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3254 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3257 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3258 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3259 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3260 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3263 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3264 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3265 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3266 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3267 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3270 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3271 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3272 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3273 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3276 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3277 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3278 more work to get the same precision.
3284 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3287 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3288 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3291 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3292 {-content-type-overwrite}
3293 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3294 www.example.net/.*style
3303 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3304 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3308 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3312 <term>Typical use:</term>
3314 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3319 <term>Effect:</term>
3322 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3329 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3331 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3336 <term>Parameter:</term>
3348 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3349 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3350 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3351 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3354 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3355 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3356 they contain the same string.
3359 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3360 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3361 parts of them, you should use a
3362 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3366 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3373 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3376 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3377 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3387 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3388 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3389 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3395 <term>Typical use:</term>
3397 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3402 <term>Effect:</term>
3405 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3412 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3414 <para>Boolean.</para>
3419 <term>Parameter:</term>
3431 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3432 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3433 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3434 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3437 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3438 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3441 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3442 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3443 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3446 It is recommended to use this action together with
3447 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3449 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3455 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3458 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3459 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3460 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3461 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3462 +crunch-if-none-match}
3471 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3472 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3473 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3477 <term>Typical use:</term>
3480 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3486 <term>Effect:</term>
3489 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3496 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3498 <para>Boolean.</para>
3503 <term>Parameter:</term>
3515 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3516 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3517 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3518 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3521 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3522 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3523 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3524 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3530 <term>Example usage:</term>
3533 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3541 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3542 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3543 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3549 <term>Typical use:</term>
3551 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3556 <term>Effect:</term>
3559 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3566 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3568 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3573 <term>Parameter:</term>
3585 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3586 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3587 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3590 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3591 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3592 they contain the same string.
3595 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3596 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3597 parts of them, you should use a custom
3598 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3602 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3609 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3612 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3613 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3622 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3623 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3624 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3628 <term>Typical use:</term>
3631 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3637 <term>Effect:</term>
3640 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3647 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3649 <para>Boolean.</para>
3654 <term>Parameter:</term>
3666 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3667 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3668 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3669 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3672 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3673 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3674 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3680 <term>Example usage:</term>
3683 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3692 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3693 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3694 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3698 <term>Typical use:</term>
3700 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3705 <term>Effect:</term>
3708 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3715 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3717 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3722 <term>Parameter:</term>
3725 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3734 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3735 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3736 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3737 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3738 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3739 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3742 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3743 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3750 <term>Example usage:</term>
3753 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3760 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3761 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3762 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3766 <term>Typical use:</term>
3768 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3773 <term>Effect:</term>
3776 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3783 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3785 <para>Boolean.</para>
3790 <term>Parameter:</term>
3802 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3803 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3804 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3805 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
3806 so there is a chance you might need this action.
3812 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3815 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3816 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3824 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3825 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3826 <title>fast-redirects</title>
3830 <term>Typical use:</term>
3832 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
3837 <term>Effect:</term>
3840 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
3841 the redirection server first.
3848 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3850 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3855 <term>Parameter:</term>
3860 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
3861 to detect redirection URLs.
3866 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
3867 for redirection URLs.
3878 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3879 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3880 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3881 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3882 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
3885 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3886 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3887 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3888 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3889 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3893 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3894 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
3895 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
3898 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
3899 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
3900 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
3901 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
3902 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
3903 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
3904 the user gets redirected anyway.
3907 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
3909 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3910 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
3911 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
3912 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3913 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
3914 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
3915 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
3916 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
3919 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
3920 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
3921 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
3922 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
3923 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
3924 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
3925 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
3931 <term>Example usage:</term>
3935 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
3938 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
3939 another.example.com/testing</screen>
3948 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3949 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3950 <title>filter</title>
3954 <term>Typical use:</term>
3956 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
3957 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
3962 <term>Effect:</term>
3965 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
3966 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
3967 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
3968 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
3969 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
3976 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3978 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3983 <term>Parameter:</term>
3986 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
3987 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
3988 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3989 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
3990 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
3991 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
3992 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
3995 When used in its negative form,
3996 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
4005 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
4006 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
4010 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
4011 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
4012 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
4013 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
4014 noticeable on slower connections.
4017 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
4018 filters requires a knowledge of
4019 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
4020 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
4021 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
4022 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
4023 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
4024 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
4027 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
4028 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
4029 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
4030 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
4031 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
4034 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
4035 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
4036 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
4037 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
4038 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
4039 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
4042 Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
4043 is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
4044 in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
4048 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
4049 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
4050 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
4051 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
4054 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
4055 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4056 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
4057 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
4058 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
4062 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
4063 improved filters is particularly welcome!
4066 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
4067 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
4068 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
4069 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
4075 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
4076 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
4077 more explanation on each:</term>
4080 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
4081 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
4084 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
4085 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
4088 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
4089 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
4092 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
4093 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
4096 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
4097 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
4100 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
4101 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4104 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
4105 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4108 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
4109 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
4112 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
4113 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
4116 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
4117 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
4120 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
4121 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
4124 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
4125 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
4128 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
4129 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
4132 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
4133 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable</screen>
4136 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
4137 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
4140 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
4141 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
4144 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
4145 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies savable</screen>
4148 <anchor id="filter-fun">
4149 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
4152 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
4153 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
4156 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
4157 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable a known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
4160 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
4161 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Custom filters for specific site related problems</screen>
4164 <anchor id="filter-google">
4165 <screen>+filter{google} # Removes text ads and other Google specific improvements</screen>
4168 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
4169 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # Removes text ads and other Yahoo specific improvements</screen>
4172 <anchor id="filter-msn">
4173 <screen>+filter{msn} # Removes text ads and other MSN specific improvements</screen>
4176 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
4177 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up Blogspot blogs</screen>
4180 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
4181 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes from anchor and area tags</screen>
4189 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4190 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4191 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4197 <term>Typical use:</term>
4199 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4204 <term>Effect:</term>
4207 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4214 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4216 <para>Boolean.</para>
4221 <term>Parameter:</term>
4233 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
4234 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
4235 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
4236 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
4237 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
4238 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
4242 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
4243 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4250 <term>Example usage:</term>
4263 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4264 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4265 <title>forward-override</title>
4271 <term>Typical use:</term>
4273 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4278 <term>Effect:</term>
4281 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4288 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4290 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4295 <term>Parameter:</term>
4299 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4303 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4308 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4309 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4310 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead.
4315 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4316 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4317 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4318 (with local DNS resolution) instead.
4329 This action takes parameters similar to the <!-- I hope this link actual works -->
4330 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4331 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4332 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4336 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4337 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4338 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4341 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4342 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4346 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4347 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4354 <term>Example usage:</term>
4358 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4359 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4360 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4361 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4362 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4363 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4364 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4365 -hide-if-modified-since \
4366 -overwrite-last-modified \
4368 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4377 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4378 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4379 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4385 <term>Typical use:</term>
4387 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4392 <term>Effect:</term>
4395 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4396 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4397 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4398 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4399 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4406 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4408 <para>Boolean.</para>
4413 <term>Parameter:</term>
4425 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4426 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4427 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4428 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4429 BLOCKED message in frames.
4432 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4433 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4434 but usually this isn't necessary.
4440 <term>Example usage:</term>
4443 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4444 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4445 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
4455 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4456 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4457 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4461 <term>Typical use:</term>
4463 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they do get blocked</emphasis>, rather than HTML pages)</para>
4468 <term>Effect:</term>
4471 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4472 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4473 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4474 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4475 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4476 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4483 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4485 <para>Boolean.</para>
4490 <term>Parameter:</term>
4502 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4503 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4507 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4508 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4509 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4512 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4513 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4514 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4515 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4521 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4524 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4527 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4529 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4530 # blocked as images:
4532 {+block +handle-as-image}
4533 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4535 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
4545 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4546 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4547 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4553 <term>Typical use:</term>
4555 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4560 <term>Effect:</term>
4563 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4570 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4572 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4577 <term>Parameter:</term>
4580 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4589 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4590 foreign User-Agent set with
4591 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4595 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4596 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4597 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4598 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4601 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4602 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4603 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4606 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4607 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4608 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4609 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4610 you should stick to a common language.
4616 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4619 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4620 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4621 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4631 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4632 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4633 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4639 <term>Typical use:</term>
4641 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4646 <term>Effect:</term>
4649 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4656 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4658 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4663 <term>Parameter:</term>
4666 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4675 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4676 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4677 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4678 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4681 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4682 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4683 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4686 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4687 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4688 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4689 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4690 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4694 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4695 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4699 This action will probably be removed in the future,
4700 use server-header filters instead.
4706 <term>Example usage:</term>
4709 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4711 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4712 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4713 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4721 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4722 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4723 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4729 <term>Typical use:</term>
4731 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4736 <term>Effect:</term>
4739 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4746 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4748 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4753 <term>Parameter:</term>
4756 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
4765 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4766 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
4767 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4770 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
4771 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
4772 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
4773 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
4774 subtracting, a positive value adding.
4777 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
4778 sure it isn't used as a cookie replacement, but you will run into
4779 caching problems if the random range is too high.
4782 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
4783 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
4784 handle the greater changes.
4787 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4788 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
4794 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4797 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
4798 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4799 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4800 +crunch-if-none-match}
4809 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4810 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
4811 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
4814 <term>Typical use:</term>
4816 <para>Improve privacy by not embedding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
4821 <term>Effect:</term>
4824 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
4825 and prevents adding a new one.
4832 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4834 <para>Boolean.</para>
4839 <term>Parameter:</term>
4851 It is safe to leave this on.
4857 <term>Example usage:</term>
4860 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
4868 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4869 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4870 <title>hide-from-header</title>
4874 <term>Typical use:</term>
4876 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4881 <term>Effect:</term>
4884 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4892 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4894 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4899 <term>Parameter:</term>
4902 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4911 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4912 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4916 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4917 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4918 is actually used by a real person.
4921 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4922 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4928 <term>Example usage:</term>
4931 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4932 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4940 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4941 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4942 <title>hide-referrer</title>
4943 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4946 <term>Typical use:</term>
4948 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4953 <term>Effect:</term>
4956 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4957 or replaces it with a forged one.
4964 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4966 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4971 <term>Parameter:</term>
4975 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
4979 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
4983 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
4986 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4989 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4999 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
5000 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
5001 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
5002 typed in the address directly.
5005 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
5006 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
5007 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
5008 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
5009 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
5013 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
5014 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
5015 requests, in an attempt to prevent their valuable content from being
5016 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
5019 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
5020 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
5021 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
5024 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
5025 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
5026 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
5027 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
5028 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
5034 <term>Example usage:</term>
5037 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
5038 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
5046 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5047 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
5048 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
5052 <term>Typical use:</term>
5054 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
5059 <term>Effect:</term>
5062 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
5063 in client requests with the specified value.
5070 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5072 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5077 <term>Parameter:</term>
5080 Any user-defined string.
5090 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
5091 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
5092 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
5093 work browser-independently).
5095 <ulink url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
5101 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
5102 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
5103 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
5104 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
5105 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
5106 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
5107 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
5108 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
5109 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
5110 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
5111 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
5114 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
5115 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
5117 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
5123 <term>Example usage:</term>
5126 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
5134 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5135 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="inspect-jpegs">
5136 <title>inspect-jpegs</title>
5142 <term>Typical use:</term>
5144 <para>To protect against the MS buffer over-run in JPEG processing</para>
5149 <term>Effect:</term>
5152 Protect against a known exploit
5159 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5161 <para>Boolean.</para>
5166 <term>Parameter:</term>
5178 See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-028. JPEG images are one of the most
5179 common image types found across the Internet. The exploit as described can
5180 allow execution of code on the target system, giving an attacker access
5181 to the system in question by merely planting an altered JPEG image, which
5182 would have no obvious indications of what lurks inside. This action
5183 prevents this exploit.
5186 Note that the described exploit is only one of many,
5187 using this action does not mean that you no longer
5188 have to patch the client.
5195 <term>Example usage:</term>
5197 <para><screen>+inspect-jpegs</screen></para>
5204 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5205 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
5206 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
5210 <term>Typical use:</term>
5212 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
5217 <term>Effect:</term>
5220 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
5221 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
5228 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5230 <para>Boolean.</para>
5235 <term>Parameter:</term>
5247 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
5248 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
5249 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
5250 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
5252 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
5253 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
5254 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
5258 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
5259 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
5260 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
5261 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
5262 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
5263 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
5266 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
5267 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
5268 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
5269 </literal> does a better job of catching only the unwanted ones.
5272 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
5273 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
5274 one), you might want to use
5276 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
5280 This action is most appropriate for browsers that don't have any controls
5281 for unwanted pop-ups. Not recommended for general usage.
5286 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
5294 <term>Example usage:</term>
5296 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
5303 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5304 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
5305 <title>limit-connect</title>
5309 <term>Typical use:</term>
5311 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
5316 <term>Effect:</term>
5319 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
5326 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5328 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5333 <term>Parameter:</term>
5336 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
5337 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
5346 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
5347 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
5348 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
5349 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
5350 for some or all destinations.
5353 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
5354 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
5355 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
5356 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
5357 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
5358 abused as TCP relays very easily.
5361 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
5362 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
5363 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
5364 If you plan to disable SSL by default, consider enabling
5365 <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks ">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
5366 as well, to be able to quickly create exceptions.
5372 <term>Example usages:</term>
5374 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
5375 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
5376 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
5378 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
5379 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
5380 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
5381 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
5382 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5389 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5390 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5391 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5395 <term>Typical use:</term>
5398 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5399 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5405 <term>Effect:</term>
5408 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5415 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5417 <para>Boolean.</para>
5422 <term>Parameter:</term>
5434 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5435 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5436 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5437 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions need
5438 access to the uncompressed data.
5441 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5442 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5443 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5444 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5447 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5448 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5452 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5453 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5454 predefined action settings.
5457 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5458 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5459 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5460 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5461 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5467 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5471 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5473 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5474 # Match only these sites
5479 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5481 { +prevent-compression }
5484 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5486 { -prevent-compression }
5487 .compusa.com/</screen>
5496 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5497 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5498 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5504 <term>Typical use:</term>
5506 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5511 <term>Effect:</term>
5514 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5521 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5523 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5528 <term>Parameter:</term>
5531 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5532 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5541 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5542 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5543 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5544 version of the page.
5547 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5548 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5549 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5550 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5551 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5552 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5555 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5556 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5557 this option together with
5558 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5559 to further customize your random range.
5562 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5563 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5564 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5565 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5566 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5567 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5571 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5572 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5578 <term>Example usage:</term>
5581 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5582 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5583 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5584 +crunch-if-none-match}
5593 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5594 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5595 <title>redirect</title>
5601 <term>Typical use:</term>
5604 Redirect requests to other sites.
5610 <term>Effect:</term>
5613 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5614 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5621 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5623 <para>Parameterized</para>
5628 <term>Parameter:</term>
5631 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5640 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5641 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5642 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5643 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5646 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5647 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5648 It can be combined with
5649 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5650 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5653 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5654 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5655 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5661 <term>Example usages:</term>
5664 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5665 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5666 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5668 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5669 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5670 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5673 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5674 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5675 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5676 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5677 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$</screen>
5686 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5687 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
5688 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
5692 <term>Typical use:</term>
5695 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
5701 <term>Effect:</term>
5704 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
5705 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
5712 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5714 <para>Boolean.</para>
5719 <term>Parameter:</term>
5731 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
5734 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
5740 <term>Example usage:</term>
5743 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
5752 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5753 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
5754 <title>send-wafer</title>
5758 <term>Typical use:</term>
5761 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
5767 <term>Effect:</term>
5770 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
5777 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5779 <para>Multi-value.</para>
5784 <term>Parameter:</term>
5787 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
5788 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
5797 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
5798 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
5801 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
5806 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5809 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
5810 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
5818 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5819 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5820 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5824 <term>Typical use:</term>
5827 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5833 <term>Effect:</term>
5836 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5837 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5844 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5846 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5851 <term>Parameter:</term>
5854 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5855 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5864 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5865 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5866 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5867 You can do that by using tags though.
5870 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5871 and use their output as input.
5874 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5875 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5882 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5886 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5887 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5889 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5890 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5900 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5901 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5902 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5906 <term>Typical use:</term>
5909 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5915 <term>Effect:</term>
5918 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5919 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5927 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5929 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5934 <term>Parameter:</term>
5937 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5938 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5947 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5948 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5952 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5953 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5954 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5955 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5956 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5959 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5960 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5967 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5971 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5972 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5983 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5984 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5985 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5989 <term>Typical use:</term>
5992 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5993 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5999 <term>Effect:</term>
6002 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
6003 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
6004 forget them in between sessions.
6011 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6013 <para>Boolean.</para>
6018 <term>Parameter:</term>
6030 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
6031 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
6032 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
6035 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
6036 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
6037 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
6038 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
6039 sites, and is the recommended setting.
6042 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
6043 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
6044 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
6045 will be plainly killed.
6048 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
6049 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
6052 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
6053 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
6054 These would have to be removed manually.
6057 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
6058 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
6059 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
6060 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
6066 <term>Example usage:</term>
6069 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
6077 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6078 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
6079 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
6083 <term>Typical use:</term>
6085 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
6090 <term>Effect:</term>
6093 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
6094 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
6095 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
6096 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
6097 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
6098 sent as a replacement.
6105 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6107 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6112 <term>Parameter:</term>
6117 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
6118 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
6123 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
6124 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
6125 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
6126 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
6131 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
6132 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
6133 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
6134 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
6137 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
6138 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
6139 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
6140 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
6141 it over and over again.
6152 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
6153 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
6154 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
6157 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
6158 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
6159 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
6165 <term>Example usage:</term>
6171 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
6174 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
6177 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
6180 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
6183 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
6191 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6192 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">
6193 <title>treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</title>
6199 <term>Typical use:</term>
6201 <para>Block forbidden connects with an easy to find error message.</para>
6206 <term>Effect:</term>
6209 If this action is enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> no longer
6210 makes a difference between forbidden connects and ordinary blocks.
6217 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6219 <para>Boolean</para>
6224 <term>Parameter:</term>
6234 By default <application>Privoxy</application> answers
6235 <link linkend="limit-connect">forbidden <quote>Connect</quote> requests</link>
6236 with a short error message inside the headers. If the browser doesn't display
6237 headers (most don't), you just see an empty page.
6240 With this action enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> displays
6241 the message that is used for ordinary blocks instead. If you decide
6242 to make an exception for the page in question, you can do so by
6243 following the <quote>See why</quote> link.
6246 For <quote>Connect</quote> requests the clients tell
6247 <application>Privoxy</application> which host they are interested
6248 in, but not which document they plan to get later. As a result, the
6249 <quote>Go there anyway</quote> wouldn't work and is therefore suppressed.
6255 <term>Example usage:</term>
6258 <screen>+treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</screen>
6266 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6268 <title>Summary</title>
6270 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
6271 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
6272 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
6273 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
6274 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
6275 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
6281 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6282 <sect2 id="aliases">
6283 <title>Aliases</title>
6285 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
6286 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
6287 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
6288 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
6290 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
6291 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
6292 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
6293 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
6294 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
6298 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
6299 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
6300 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
6301 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
6305 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
6306 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
6307 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
6308 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
6309 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
6310 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
6311 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
6314 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
6315 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
6316 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
6317 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
6318 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
6323 Now let's define some aliases...
6328 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
6330 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
6331 # must be at the top of the actions file!
6335 # These aliases just save typing later:
6336 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6338 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6339 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6340 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6341 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6343 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6344 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6346 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
6348 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
6350 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
6352 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
6353 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
6357 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
6358 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
6359 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
6364 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
6365 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
6368 .office.microsoft.com
6369 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6370 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
6374 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
6378 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6381 # These shops require pop-ups:
6383 {-kill-popups -filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
6385 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
6389 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
6390 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
6391 in order to function properly.
6397 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6398 <sect2 id="act-examples">
6399 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
6401 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
6402 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
6403 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
6404 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
6405 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
6406 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
6407 file and see how all these pieces come together:
6410 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
6413 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
6417 <screen># Sample default.action file <ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net></screen>
6421 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
6422 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
6423 change or worry about:
6428 ##########################################################################
6429 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
6430 ##########################################################################
6433 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
6437 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
6438 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
6439 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
6444 ##########################################################################
6446 ##########################################################################
6449 # These aliases just save typing later:
6450 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6452 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6453 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6454 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6455 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6457 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6458 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6460 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
6461 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
6465 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
6466 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
6467 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
6468 enable the ones we want.
6472 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
6473 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
6474 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
6475 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
6476 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
6477 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
6478 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
6483 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
6484 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
6485 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
6486 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
6487 multiple lines with line continuation.
6492 ##########################################################################
6493 # "Defaults" section:
6494 ##########################################################################
6496 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
6497 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
6498 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
6499 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
6500 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
6501 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
6502 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
6503 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
6504 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
6505 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
6506 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
6508 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
6512 The default behavior is now set.
6514 This needs rewording, but it can wait for now.
6517 Note that some actions, like not hiding
6518 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
6519 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
6520 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
6521 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
6522 want to block in later sections.
6527 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6528 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6529 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6530 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6531 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6532 of actions explicitly:
6537 ##########################################################################
6538 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6539 ##########################################################################
6541 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6544 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6545 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6546 mail.google.com</screen>
6550 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6551 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6552 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6561 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6563 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6566 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
6569 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
6570 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
6571 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
6572 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
6574 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
6575 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
6576 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
6577 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
6578 chosen in the defaults section:
6583 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
6585 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
6588 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
6591 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
6594 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6595 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
6596 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6601 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6605 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6606 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6607 .nytimes.com</screen>
6611 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6612 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6613 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6614 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6615 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6616 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6617 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
6618 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6619 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6625 ##########################################################################
6627 ##########################################################################
6629 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6630 # blocked further down this file:
6632 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6633 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6637 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6638 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6639 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6640 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6641 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6642 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6643 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6644 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6645 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6646 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6647 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6648 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6653 # Known ad generators:
6658 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6659 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6660 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6666 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6667 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6668 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6669 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6670 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6671 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6672 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6673 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6674 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6677 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6678 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6679 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6680 to keep the example short:
6685 ##########################################################################
6686 # Block these fine banners:
6687 ##########################################################################
6688 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
6696 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6697 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6699 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6701 .hitbox.com</screen>
6705 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6706 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6707 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6708 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6711 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6712 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6713 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6714 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6715 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6716 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6720 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6721 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6722 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6723 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6724 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6725 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6726 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6727 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6728 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6729 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6734 ##########################################################################
6735 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6736 ##########################################################################
6740 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6741 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6742 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6743 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6744 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6745 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6746 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6754 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6755 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6759 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6760 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6761 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6762 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6763 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6768 # Don't filter code!
6770 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6775 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6779 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6780 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6785 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6788 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6789 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6790 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6791 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6792 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6793 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6794 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6795 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6796 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6797 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6798 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6799 to install updated versions from time to time.
6803 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6804 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6808 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6812 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6816 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6817 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6818 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6823 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6824 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6828 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6829 # be self explanatory.
6831 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6832 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6833 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6834 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
6835 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6836 -block-as-image = -block
6838 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6839 # certain types of sites:
6841 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer -kill-popups
6842 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6844 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6846 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6848 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6849 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6850 handle-as-text = -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> +-<link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{text/plain}</link> +-<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link></screen>
6855 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6856 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6857 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6858 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6859 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6860 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6865 { allow-all-cookies }
6869 .redhat.com</screen>
6873 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6878 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6879 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6883 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6888 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6889 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6894 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6895 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6897 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6901 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6902 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6903 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6904 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6905 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6906 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6907 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6908 in default.action anyway:
6913 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6914 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6915 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6919 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6920 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6921 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6922 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6923 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6925 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6926 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6927 browser. Use cautiously.
6936 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6940 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6941 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6942 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6943 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6944 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6945 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6946 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6947 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6948 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6956 .mybank.com</screen>
6960 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6961 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6962 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6963 update-safe config, once and for all:
6968 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6969 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6973 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6974 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6975 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6976 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6977 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6981 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6982 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6983 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6984 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6996 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6997 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6998 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6999 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
7003 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
7004 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
7005 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
7006 it should I choose to.
7016 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
7017 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
7018 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
7019 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
7020 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
7021 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
7027 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
7028 / # ALL sites</screen>
7034 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7038 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7040 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7042 <sect1 id="filter-file">
7043 <title>Filter Files</title>
7046 On-the-fly text substitutions need
7047 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
7048 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
7052 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
7053 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
7054 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
7055 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
7056 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
7057 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
7058 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
7062 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
7063 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
7065 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
7066 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
7067 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
7068 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
7069 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
7074 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
7075 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
7076 as supplied by the developers are located in
7077 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
7078 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
7079 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
7083 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
7084 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
7085 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
7086 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
7087 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
7088 or just to have fun.
7092 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
7093 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
7094 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
7095 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
7096 to also filter other content.
7100 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
7101 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
7102 and, of course, regular expressions.
7106 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
7107 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
7108 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
7109 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
7110 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
7111 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
7112 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
7113 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
7114 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
7115 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
7116 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7117 user interface</ulink>.
7121 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
7122 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
7123 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
7124 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
7128 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
7129 type, the filter name and the filter description.
7130 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
7135 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
7139 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
7140 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
7141 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
7142 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
7143 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
7144 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
7145 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
7146 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
7151 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
7152 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
7153 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
7154 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
7156 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
7157 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
7158 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
7159 expressions</ulink> in general.
7160 The below examples might also help to get you started.
7164 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7166 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
7168 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
7169 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
7170 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
7175 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
7179 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
7180 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
7181 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
7182 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
7186 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7190 Our complete filter now looks like this:
7193 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
7194 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7198 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
7199 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
7200 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
7206 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
7208 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
7210 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
7214 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
7215 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
7216 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
7217 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
7221 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
7222 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
7223 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
7224 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
7225 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
7229 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
7230 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
7231 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
7232 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
7233 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
7234 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
7235 in the page (and appear in that order).
7239 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
7240 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
7241 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
7242 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
7243 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
7247 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
7248 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
7249 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
7250 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
7251 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
7252 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
7253 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
7254 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
7255 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
7256 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
7257 substitution is global.
7261 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
7262 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
7263 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
7264 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
7265 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
7269 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
7270 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
7271 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
7272 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
7273 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
7274 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
7275 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
7276 Business!"</literal>.
7280 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
7281 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
7282 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
7283 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
7284 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
7285 information anymore.
7289 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
7290 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
7295 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
7297 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
7301 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
7302 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
7303 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
7304 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
7305 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
7306 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
7307 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
7308 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
7309 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
7313 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
7314 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
7315 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
7316 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
7317 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
7318 you move your mouse over links.
7323 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
7325 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
7330 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
7331 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
7332 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
7333 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
7334 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
7335 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
7336 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
7337 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
7338 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
7339 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
7344 The last example is from the fun department:
7349 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
7351 # Spice the daily news:
7353 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
7357 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
7358 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
7359 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
7360 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
7361 still replacing the word everywhere else.
7366 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
7368 s* industry[ -]leading \
7370 | customer[ -]focused \
7371 | market[ -]driven \
7372 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
7373 | high[ -]performance \
7374 | solutions[ -]based \
7378 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
7383 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
7384 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
7392 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7394 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
7398 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
7399 keep these listings in sync.
7404 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
7405 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
7410 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7413 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
7418 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
7419 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
7420 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
7425 removes the bindings to the DOM's
7426 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
7427 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
7428 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
7433 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
7434 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
7440 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
7441 rely heavily on JavaScript.
7447 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
7450 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
7451 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
7452 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
7455 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
7456 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
7463 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7466 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
7469 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
7470 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
7471 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
7472 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
7478 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
7481 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
7483 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
7484 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
7485 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
7486 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
7489 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
7490 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
7491 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
7492 use the cookie crunch actions.
7498 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
7501 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
7502 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
7503 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
7510 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
7513 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
7514 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
7515 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
7516 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
7519 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
7520 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
7521 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
7522 restoring the function afterward.
7525 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
7526 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
7527 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
7533 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
7536 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
7537 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
7538 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
7539 usage. Use with caution.
7545 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7548 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7549 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7550 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7556 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7559 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7560 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7561 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7564 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7565 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7568 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7569 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7575 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7578 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7579 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7580 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7586 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7589 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7590 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7591 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7592 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7593 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7594 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7595 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7598 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7604 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7607 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7608 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7609 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7610 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7613 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7619 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7622 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7623 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7624 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7630 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7633 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7634 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7635 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7636 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7637 small to show their whole content.
7640 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7647 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7650 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7651 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7652 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7655 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7656 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7657 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7658 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7659 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7662 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7663 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7664 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7671 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7674 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7675 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7683 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7686 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7687 prevents saving, is disabled.
7693 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7696 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7697 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7703 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7706 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7707 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7713 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7716 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7717 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7720 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7721 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7727 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7730 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7731 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7734 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7735 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7736 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7737 anything regarding this filter.
7743 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7746 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7747 and the toolbar advertisement.
7753 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7756 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7757 a width limitation as well.
7763 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7766 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7767 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7773 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7776 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7779 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7780 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7781 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7782 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7788 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7791 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7797 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7800 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7806 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7809 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7810 anchor and area HTML tags.
7816 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7819 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7820 found in Host and Referer headers.
7823 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7824 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7825 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7826 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7829 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7830 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7831 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7832 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7835 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7836 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7837 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7840 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7841 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7842 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7843 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7844 the request is coming from.
7851 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7865 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7869 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7871 <sect1 id="templates">
7872 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7874 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7875 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7876 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7877 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7879 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7880 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7881 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7886 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7887 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7889 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7893 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7894 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7895 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7896 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7897 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7898 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7899 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7903 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7904 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7908 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7909 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7910 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7911 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7912 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7916 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7917 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7918 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7919 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7920 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7925 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7927 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7929 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7933 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7934 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7935 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7939 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7943 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7944 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7949 All templates refer to a style located at
7950 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7951 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7952 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7953 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7958 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7962 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7964 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7967 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7969 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7973 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7976 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7977 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7979 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7981 <!-- end copyright -->
7983 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7984 <sect2><title>License</title>
7985 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7987 <!-- end copyright -->
7989 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7992 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7994 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7995 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7997 <!-- end history -->
8000 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
8001 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
8003 <!-- end authors -->
8008 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8011 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8012 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
8013 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
8015 <!-- end seealso -->
8020 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8021 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
8024 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8026 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
8028 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
8029 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
8030 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
8031 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
8034 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
8036 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
8040 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
8041 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
8042 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
8043 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
8047 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
8048 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
8049 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
8050 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
8051 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
8052 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
8053 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
8054 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
8058 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
8059 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
8060 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
8061 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
8062 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
8063 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
8064 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
8065 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
8069 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
8070 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
8071 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
8072 and then some examples:
8077 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
8078 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
8080 </simplelist></para>
8084 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
8087 </simplelist></para>
8091 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
8094 </simplelist></para>
8098 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
8101 </simplelist></para>
8105 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
8106 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
8107 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
8108 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
8109 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
8110 meta-character meaning of any single character).
8112 </simplelist></para>
8116 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
8117 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
8118 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
8119 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
8121 </simplelist></para>
8125 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
8126 or multiple sub-expressions.
8128 </simplelist></para>
8132 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
8133 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
8134 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
8135 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
8136 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
8137 example</quote>, and nothing else.
8139 </simplelist></para>
8142 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
8143 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
8144 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
8145 be more illuminating:
8149 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
8150 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
8151 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
8152 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
8153 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
8154 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
8155 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
8156 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
8157 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
8158 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
8159 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
8160 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
8161 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
8162 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
8167 And now something a little more complex:
8171 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
8172 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
8173 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
8174 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
8175 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
8176 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
8177 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
8182 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
8183 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
8184 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
8185 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
8186 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
8187 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
8188 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
8189 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
8190 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
8191 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
8192 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
8193 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
8194 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
8195 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
8196 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
8197 changing our regular expression to:
8198 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
8203 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
8204 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
8205 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
8206 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
8207 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
8208 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
8209 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
8210 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
8211 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
8212 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
8213 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
8214 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
8215 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
8216 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
8217 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
8218 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
8219 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
8220 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
8221 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
8222 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
8223 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
8224 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
8225 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
8226 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
8227 in the expression anywhere).
8231 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
8232 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
8233 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
8234 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
8235 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
8240 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
8241 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
8245 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
8246 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
8251 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8254 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8256 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
8259 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
8260 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
8261 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
8262 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
8263 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
8264 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
8265 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
8271 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
8272 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
8273 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
8274 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
8287 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
8291 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
8292 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
8293 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
8299 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
8300 editing of actions files:
8304 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
8311 Show the source code version numbers:
8315 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
8322 Show the browser's request headers:
8326 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
8333 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
8337 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8344 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
8345 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
8346 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
8351 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
8355 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
8359 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
8364 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
8373 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
8377 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
8378 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
8380 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
8381 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8382 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
8383 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
8384 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
8385 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
8388 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
8389 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
8390 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
8391 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
8392 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
8393 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
8402 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
8409 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
8416 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
8423 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
8429 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
8435 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
8442 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
8443 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
8444 have more information about bookmarklets.
8453 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8455 <title>Chain of Events</title>
8457 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8458 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
8459 page is requested by your browser:
8466 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
8467 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
8468 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
8474 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
8475 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
8480 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
8482 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
8483 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
8484 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
8486 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
8487 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
8488 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
8489 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
8490 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
8491 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
8492 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
8497 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
8498 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
8503 If the URL pattern matches the <link
8504 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
8505 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
8510 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
8511 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
8512 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
8513 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
8519 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
8525 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
8526 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
8527 filtered as determined by the
8528 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
8529 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
8530 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
8536 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
8537 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
8538 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
8543 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8545 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8546 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
8547 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
8548 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
8549 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
8550 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
8551 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
8552 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
8553 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
8556 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8558 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8559 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
8560 to the client browser as it becomes available.
8565 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
8566 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
8567 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
8568 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
8569 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
8570 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
8571 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
8572 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8573 differing set of actions is triggered.
8580 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8581 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8582 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8588 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8589 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8590 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8593 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8594 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8595 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8596 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8597 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8598 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8599 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8600 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8601 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8606 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8607 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8608 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8609 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8610 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
8611 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
8612 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
8615 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8616 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8617 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8618 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8619 configuration issue.
8623 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8624 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8625 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8626 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8630 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8631 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8632 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8633 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8634 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8635 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8636 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8637 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8638 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8639 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8640 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8641 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8642 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8647 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8648 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8649 configuration may vary):
8654 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8656 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8658 {+deanimate-gifs {last}
8659 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8660 +filter {refresh-tags}
8661 +filter {img-reorder}
8662 +filter {banners-by-size}
8664 +filter {jumping-windows}
8665 +filter {ie-exploits}
8666 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8667 +hide-from-header {block}
8668 +hide-referrer {forge}
8669 +session-cookies-only
8670 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8673 { -session-cookies-only }
8679 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8680 (no matches in this file)
8685 This is telling us how we have defined our
8686 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8687 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8688 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8689 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8690 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8691 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8692 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8696 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8697 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8698 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8699 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8700 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8701 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8705 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8706 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8707 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8708 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8709 cookie setting, which was for <link
8710 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8711 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8712 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8713 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8714 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8715 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8716 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8717 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8718 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8719 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8720 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8721 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8722 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8726 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8727 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8728 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8729 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8730 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8731 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8735 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8736 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8737 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8748 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8749 -content-type-overwrite
8750 -crunch-client-header
8751 -crunch-if-none-match
8752 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8753 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8754 -crunch-server-header
8755 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8756 -downgrade-http-version
8759 -filter {content-cookies}
8760 -filter {all-popups}
8761 -filter {banners-by-link}
8762 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8763 -filter {frameset-borders}
8764 -filter {demoronizer}
8765 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8766 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8768 -filter {crude-parental}
8769 -filter {site-specifics}
8770 -filter {js-annoyances}
8771 -filter {html-annoyances}
8772 +filter {refresh-tags}
8773 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8774 +filter {img-reorder}
8775 +filter {banners-by-size}
8777 +filter {jumping-windows}
8778 +filter {ie-exploits}
8785 -handle-as-empty-document
8787 -hide-accept-language
8788 -hide-content-disposition
8789 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8790 +hide-from-header {block}
8791 -hide-if-modified-since
8792 +hide-referrer {forge}
8797 -overwrite-last-modified
8798 -prevent-compression
8802 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8803 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8804 -session-cookies-only
8805 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8806 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks </screen>
8810 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8811 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8812 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8813 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8817 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8829 { +block +handle-as-image }
8830 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8835 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8836 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block</quote> sections,
8837 and a <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
8838 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8839 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8840 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8841 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8846 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8847 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8848 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8849 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8850 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8851 is done here -- as both a <link
8852 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
8853 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8854 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8855 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8856 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8860 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8861 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8867 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8869 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8873 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8874 -content-type-overwrite
8875 -crunch-client-header
8876 -crunch-if-none-match
8877 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8878 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8879 -crunch-server-header
8881 -downgrade-http-version
8882 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8884 -filter {content-cookies}
8885 -filter {all-popups}
8886 -filter {banners-by-link}
8887 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8888 -filter {frameset-borders}
8889 -filter {demoronizer}
8890 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8891 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8893 -filter {crude-parental}
8894 -filter {site-specifics}
8895 -filter {js-annoyances}
8896 -filter {html-annoyances}
8897 +filter {refresh-tags}
8898 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8899 +filter {img-reorder}
8900 +filter {banners-by-size}
8902 +filter {jumping-windows}
8903 +filter {ie-exploits}
8910 -handle-as-empty-document
8912 -hide-accept-language
8913 -hide-content-disposition
8914 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8915 +hide-from-header{block}
8916 +hide-referer{forge}
8920 -overwrite-last-modified
8921 +prevent-compression
8925 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8926 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8927 +session-cookies-only
8928 +set-image-blocker{blank}
8929 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks }
8932 { +block +handle-as-image }
8938 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8939 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8940 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8941 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8942 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8943 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8944 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8945 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8946 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8947 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8948 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8960 Now the page displays ;-)
8961 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8962 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8963 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8967 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8974 { +block +handle-as-image }
8980 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8981 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8982 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8983 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8984 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8985 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8986 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8987 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8988 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8996 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
9004 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
9005 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
9006 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
9014 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
9022 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
9023 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
9024 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
9025 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
9026 automatically in the scope of the action.
9030 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
9031 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
9033 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
9034 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
9038 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
9039 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
9040 last resort for problem sites.
9046 # Handle with care: easy to break
9048 mybank.example.com</screen>
9053 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
9054 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
9055 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
9056 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
9060 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
9061 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
9070 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
9071 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
9072 Public License as published by the Free Software
9073 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
9074 your option) any later version.
9076 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
9077 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
9078 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
9079 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
9080 License for more details.
9082 The GNU General Public License should be included with
9083 this file. If not, you can view it at
9084 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
9085 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
9086 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
9089 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
9090 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
9091 - Use new action defaults.
9092 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
9094 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
9095 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
9097 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
9098 Results of spell check.
9100 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
9101 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
9104 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
9105 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
9106 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
9108 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
9109 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
9110 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
9112 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
9113 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
9114 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
9116 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
9117 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
9119 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
9120 Update embedded show-url-info output.
9122 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
9123 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
9124 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
9126 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
9127 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
9128 extensive comments moved to user manual.
9130 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
9131 Minor rewordings and fixes.
9133 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
9134 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
9135 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
9136 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
9137 leading and trailing space.
9138 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
9140 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
9141 that it's only meant to protect against a single
9144 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
9145 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
9147 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
9148 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
9149 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
9151 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
9152 Start to document forward-override{}.
9154 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
9155 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
9156 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
9157 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
9159 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
9160 Some updates regarding header filtering,
9161 handling of compressed content and redirect's
9162 support for pcrs commands.
9164 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
9165 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
9167 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
9168 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
9171 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
9174 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
9175 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
9176 compression to make filters work on all sites.
9178 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
9179 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
9181 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
9182 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
9185 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
9186 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
9187 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
9189 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
9190 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
9192 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
9193 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
9196 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
9197 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
9198 to reflect the recent changes.
9200 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
9202 -Fix a number of broken links.
9203 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
9205 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
9208 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
9209 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
9211 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
9212 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
9214 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
9215 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
9216 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
9217 and proof reading left to do.
9219 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
9220 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
9221 files, and assorted other minor changes.
9223 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
9224 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
9225 stubbed in. More to be done.
9227 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
9228 Documented new actions that were part of
9229 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
9231 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
9232 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
9233 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
9235 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
9238 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
9239 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
9241 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
9244 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
9245 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
9246 is dependent on browser.
9248 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
9249 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
9251 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
9252 Some minor clarifications
9254 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
9255 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
9256 and copyright notice dates.
9258 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
9259 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
9261 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
9262 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
9264 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
9265 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
9267 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
9268 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
9269 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
9271 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
9272 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
9275 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
9276 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
9278 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
9279 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
9281 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
9282 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
9284 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
9285 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
9286 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
9289 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
9290 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
9292 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
9293 Added documentation for new chroot option
9295 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
9296 Adapted to the new filters
9298 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
9299 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
9302 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
9303 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
9305 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
9306 Add demoronizer to filter section.
9308 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
9309 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
9311 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
9312 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
9313 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
9315 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
9316 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
9318 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
9319 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
9322 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
9323 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
9325 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
9326 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
9328 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
9329 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
9331 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
9332 Nits re: actions file download
9334 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
9335 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
9337 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
9338 Added 2 Gentoo sections
9340 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
9341 - Added version info to title
9342 - Added info on new filters
9343 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
9344 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
9346 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
9347 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
9349 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
9351 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
9353 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
9354 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
9356 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
9357 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
9359 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
9360 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
9362 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
9363 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
9364 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
9365 so that these are in sync with each other.
9367 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
9368 Ooops missed something from David.
9370 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
9371 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
9372 That's a wrap, I think.
9374 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
9375 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
9377 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
9378 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
9380 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
9381 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
9382 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
9384 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
9385 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
9387 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
9388 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
9389 <literal><link> style.
9390 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
9391 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
9392 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
9393 renders them red (bad in TOC).
9395 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
9396 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
9398 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
9401 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
9402 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
9403 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
9405 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
9406 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
9407 - Small changes to Regex appendix
9408 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
9410 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
9411 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
9413 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
9414 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
9416 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
9417 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
9419 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
9420 Extended and further commented the example actions files
9422 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
9423 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
9426 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
9429 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
9430 Restored alphabetical order of actions
9432 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
9433 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
9435 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
9436 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
9438 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
9439 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
9440 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
9442 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
9443 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
9444 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
9445 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
9447 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
9448 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
9450 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
9453 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
9454 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
9455 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
9457 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
9458 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
9460 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
9461 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
9462 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
9464 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
9465 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
9467 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
9468 more structure in starting section
9470 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
9471 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
9472 will probably break links elsewhere :(
9474 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
9475 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
9476 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
9478 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
9479 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
9480 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
9482 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
9483 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
9485 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
9486 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
9487 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
9489 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
9490 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
9491 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
9493 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
9494 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
9496 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
9497 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
9499 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
9500 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
9502 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
9503 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
9505 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
9506 Updated OSX installation section
9507 Added a few English tweaks here an there
9509 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
9510 Re-write actions section.
9512 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
9513 Fix ugly typo (mine).
9515 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
9516 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
9518 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
9519 Added RPM install detail
9521 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
9524 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
9525 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
9527 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
9528 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
9530 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
9531 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
9533 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
9536 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
9537 Proofreading, part one
9539 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
9540 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
9541 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
9543 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
9544 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
9546 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
9547 Add small section on submitting actions.
9549 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
9552 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
9553 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
9555 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
9556 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
9558 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
9561 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
9562 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
9563 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
9564 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
9565 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
9567 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
9568 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
9570 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
9571 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
9573 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
9574 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
9575 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
9576 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
9577 eventually be set by Makefile.
9578 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
9580 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
9581 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
9583 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
9584 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
9586 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
9587 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
9589 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
9590 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
9591 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
9592 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
9594 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
9597 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9598 Added more to Anatomy section.
9600 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9601 Touch up intro for new name.
9603 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9604 we have a new homepage!
9606 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9607 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9609 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9610 configure needs to be generated.
9612 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9613 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9614 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9616 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9617 name change related issue.
9619 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9620 name change. changed filenames.
9622 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9625 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9626 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9627 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9628 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9629 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9631 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9634 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9635 New section in Appendix.
9637 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9638 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9640 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9641 correct feedback channels
9643 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9644 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9646 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9649 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9650 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9652 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9653 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9655 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9658 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9659 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9661 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9662 provide correct feedback channels
9664 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9665 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9667 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9668 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9670 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9671 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9673 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9674 Add new - - user option.
9676 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9677 Added section on command line options.
9679 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9680 Changed default port to 8118
9682 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9683 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9685 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9686 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9687 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9690 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9693 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9694 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9696 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9697 Update OS/2 build section
9699 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9700 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9701 will work - no other changes are needed.
9703 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9704 Added a very short section on Templates
9706 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9707 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9709 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9710 Touch ups for *.action files.
9712 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9715 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9716 Updates for recent changes.
9718 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9719 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9721 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9722 Correct 2 minor errors
9724 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9725 *** empty log message ***
9727 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9728 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9730 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9731 wrong url in documentation
9733 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9734 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9736 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9739 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9742 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9745 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9746 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9748 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9749 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9751 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9754 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9755 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9757 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9760 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9761 source files for junkbuster documentation
9763 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9764 first proposal of a structure.
9766 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9767 docs should have an author.
9769 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9770 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.