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">
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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 "3.0.3">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
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 -->
29 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
32 This file belongs into
33 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
35 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9 Exp $
37 Copyright (C) 2001- 2003 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
40 ========================================================================
41 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
42 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
43 ========================================================================
50 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
54 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
55 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
56 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001 - 2004 by
57 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
61 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
65 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
66 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
67 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
68 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
81 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
82 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
83 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
89 The <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
90 install, configure and use <ulink
91 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
94 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
96 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
99 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
100 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
101 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
102 contact the developers.
106 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
112 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
113 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
115 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
116 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
117 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
118 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
119 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
120 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
121 earlier versions. The target release date for
122 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
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 <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
139 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
140 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
141 some of them currently under development]]>:
143 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
145 <!-- end boilerplate -->
150 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
153 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
154 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
157 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
158 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
159 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
160 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
165 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
166 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
167 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
168 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
169 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
170 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
171 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 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
181 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs</title>
184 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
185 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
186 of configuration files.
190 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
191 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
192 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
193 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
194 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
198 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
199 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
200 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
204 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
205 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
206 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
207 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
211 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
212 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
214 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
215 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
220 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
221 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
224 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
225 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
226 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in.
230 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
231 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
234 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
235 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
236 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
240 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
241 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
244 First, make sure that no previous installations of
245 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
246 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
247 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
248 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
254 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
255 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
256 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
257 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
261 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
262 into will contain all of the configuration files.
266 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
267 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
269 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
270 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
271 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
272 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
273 and follow the installation process.
274 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
275 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
276 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
277 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
278 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
281 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
282 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
283 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
284 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
288 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
292 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
296 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
297 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
299 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
300 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
301 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
302 remove this directory.
306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
307 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
309 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
310 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
311 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
312 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
315 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
316 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
317 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
321 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
322 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
323 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
329 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
330 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
333 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
334 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
339 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
340 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
341 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
342 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
343 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
347 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
349 <!-- end boilerplate -->
352 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
353 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
355 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
356 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
357 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
358 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
363 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
364 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
365 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
366 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
370 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
371 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
372 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> for your
373 customization of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
374 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
382 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
384 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
385 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
386 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
388 There are very significant changes from earlier
389 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
390 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
391 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
392 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
393 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
394 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
395 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
396 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
397 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
398 files</quote></link>.
399 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
400 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
403 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
404 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
405 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
406 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
409 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
410 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
411 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
412 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
413 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
414 recommended to use the new configuration files.
417 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
425 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
431 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
432 important configuration files!
437 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
438 at the special URL: <ulink
439 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
440 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
441 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
442 <application>Privoxy</application>.
447 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
448 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
449 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
450 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
451 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
452 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
457 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
458 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
459 Some installers may not automatically start
460 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
468 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
469 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
475 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
476 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
482 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
483 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
490 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
491 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
492 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
493 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
500 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
501 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
502 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
508 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
509 HTTPS (SSL) proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
510 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
511 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
512 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
513 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
514 for more details on this.
520 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
521 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage cookies, you should
522 remove any currently stored cookies too.
528 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
529 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
530 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
531 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
534 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
535 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
536 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
537 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
538 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
545 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
546 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
547 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
548 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
549 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
550 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
551 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
552 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
553 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
554 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
560 For easy access to Privoxy's most important controls, drag the provided
561 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
568 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
569 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
576 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
584 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
586 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
587 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
589 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
590 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
593 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
594 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
595 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
598 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
599 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
600 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
603 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
604 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
605 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
606 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
607 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
608 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
609 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
610 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
611 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
612 habits and preferences.
615 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
616 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
617 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
618 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
619 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
620 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
621 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
622 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
623 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
624 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
627 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
628 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
629 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
630 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
631 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
634 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
635 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
636 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
637 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
638 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
639 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
640 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
641 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
642 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
647 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <literal><link
648 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
649 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>, and
650 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
658 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this action stops
659 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
660 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
661 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
662 communication with the remote server and sends <application>Privoxy</application>'s
663 own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened.
669 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
670 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
671 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
672 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
673 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
674 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
675 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
676 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
677 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
678 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
679 an entire HTML page in most situations.
686 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
687 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
688 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
689 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
690 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
691 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
694 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
698 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
699 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
704 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
705 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
710 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
711 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
720 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
721 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
722 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
723 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
724 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
725 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
726 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
727 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
728 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
729 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
730 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
731 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
735 A quick and simple step by step example:
743 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
744 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
752 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
757 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
758 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
761 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
763 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
766 <imagedata fileref="../images/files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
769 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
778 You should have a section with only
779 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
780 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
781 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
782 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
783 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
784 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
785 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
786 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
792 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
793 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
794 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
795 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
796 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
797 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
802 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
803 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
811 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
812 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
813 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
814 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
819 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
820 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
821 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
828 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
831 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
833 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
835 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
836 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
837 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
838 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
839 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
842 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
843 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
846 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
848 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration (Mozilla)</title>
851 <imagedata fileref="../images/proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
854 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
861 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
862 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
866 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
867 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
868 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton>
870 <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton>
872 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton>
874 <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton>
876 <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
880 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>:
884 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
885 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
886 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton>
888 <guibutton>Internet Properties</guibutton>
890 <guibutton>Connections</guibutton>
892 <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
896 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
897 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
902 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
903 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
904 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
905 <application>Privoxy</application>!
909 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
910 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
911 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
912 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
913 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
916 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
917 <title>Red Hat and Conectiva</title>
919 We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
920 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as
921 its main configuration file.
925 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
930 <sect2 id="start-debian">
931 <title>Debian</title>
933 We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per
934 default. It will use the file
935 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
940 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
945 <sect2 id="start-suse">
948 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
949 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
959 <sect2 id="start-windows">
960 <title>Windows</title>
962 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
963 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
964 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
965 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
969 <sect2 id="start-unices">
970 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
972 Example Unix startup command:
976 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
981 <sect2 id="start-os2">
984 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
985 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
986 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
987 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
991 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
992 <title>Mac OSX</title>
994 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
995 start automatically when the system restarts. To start Privoxy by hand,
996 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
997 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
1002 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
1006 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1011 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1012 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1014 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1015 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1016 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1017 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1018 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1019 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1020 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1024 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1025 <title>Gentoo</title>
1027 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1028 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1032 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1036 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1037 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1042 rc-update add privoxy default
1050 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1054 must find a better place for this paragraph
1057 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1058 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1059 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1060 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1061 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1062 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1066 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1067 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1068 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1069 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1070 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1071 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1072 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1073 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1074 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1078 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1079 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1080 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1082 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1083 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1084 popups (explained below).
1088 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
1089 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
1090 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1091 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1092 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1093 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1094 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1095 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1096 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1100 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1101 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1102 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1103 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1104 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1105 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1106 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1107 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1108 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1112 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1113 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1114 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1115 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1116 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1117 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1118 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1122 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1123 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1124 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1125 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1126 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1127 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1132 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1133 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1134 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1139 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1140 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1141 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1142 Developers</quote></link> below.
1147 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1148 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1149 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1151 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1152 command-line options:
1160 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1163 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1168 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1171 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1176 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1179 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1180 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1185 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1189 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1190 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1191 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1192 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1197 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1201 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1202 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1203 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1208 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1212 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1213 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the Privoxy
1214 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1215 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in Privoxy to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1221 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1224 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1225 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1226 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1227 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1228 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1229 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1240 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1244 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
1246 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1247 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1248 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1249 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1253 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1256 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
1258 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1259 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1260 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1261 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1262 You will see the following section:
1266 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1269 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1273 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1276 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1279 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1282 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1285 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1288 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1296 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1297 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1298 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1299 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1300 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1301 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1305 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1306 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1307 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1308 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1309 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1310 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1311 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1312 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1318 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1325 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1326 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1328 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1329 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1330 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1331 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1332 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1333 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1337 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1338 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1339 principle configuration files are:
1347 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1348 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1349 on Windows. This is a required file.
1355 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1356 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1357 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1358 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1359 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1360 as many websites as possible.
1363 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1364 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1365 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1366 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1367 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1368 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1369 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1370 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1373 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1375 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1377 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1378 various actions files.
1384 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1385 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1386 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1387 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1388 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files. Only one filter
1389 file may be defined.
1397 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1398 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1399 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1400 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1401 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1402 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1407 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1408 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1409 maximum flexibility.
1413 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1414 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1415 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1416 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1417 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1418 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1419 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1424 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1425 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1426 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1427 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1433 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1436 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1438 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1439 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1440 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1442 <!-- end include -->
1445 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1449 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1451 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1454 The actions files are used to define what actions
1455 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
1456 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1457 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
1458 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application>
1459 with differing purposes:
1466 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1467 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1468 provide a base level of functionality for
1469 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1470 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
1471 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1472 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1477 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1478 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1479 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1480 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1485 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
1486 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1487 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
1488 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
1489 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
1493 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1494 <filename>standard.action</filename> are:
1497 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1498 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1499 <colspec colname=c1>
1500 <colspec colname=c2>
1501 <colspec colname=c3>
1502 <colspec colname=c4>
1505 <entry>Feature</entry>
1506 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1507 <entry>Medium</entry>
1508 <entry>Adventuresome</entry>
1513 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1514 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1515 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1516 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1522 <entry>Ad-blocking by URL</entry>
1529 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1536 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1543 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1550 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1552 <entry>session-only</entry>
1557 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1558 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1559 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1564 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1571 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1578 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1585 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1592 <entry>Fun text replacements</entry>
1599 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1606 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1613 <entry>Demoronizer</entry>
1630 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1631 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1632 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically process before
1633 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1635 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1639 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1640 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1641 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1642 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1643 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1644 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1645 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1646 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1647 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1648 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1649 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1650 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1654 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1655 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1656 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1657 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1658 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1662 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1664 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1666 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1667 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1668 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1669 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
1670 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1671 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1672 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1673 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1674 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful puposes, like maybe
1675 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1679 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1680 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1681 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1682 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1686 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1688 <title>How to Edit</title>
1690 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1691 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1692 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1693 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
1694 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
1695 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Adventuresome</quote>.
1696 Warning: the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> setting is not only more aggressive,
1697 but includes settings that are fun and subversive, and which some may find of
1702 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1703 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
1709 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1710 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
1712 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1713 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1714 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1715 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1716 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1717 Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
1721 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1722 compared to all patterns in each <quote>action file</quote> file. Every time it matches, the list of
1723 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
1724 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
1725 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
1726 the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
1727 a heading line of <literal>{
1728 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
1729 then later another one with just <literal>{
1730 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
1731 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply.
1735 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
1736 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1740 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1741 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
1745 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1746 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1747 <title>Patterns</title>
1749 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
1750 to determine what actions might apply to which sites and pages your browser
1751 attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild card type
1752 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
1753 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
1754 against many similar patterns.
1758 Generally, a <application>Privoxy</application> pattern has the form
1759 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
1760 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
1761 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
1762 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
1763 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
1764 the pattern. This is assumed already!
1769 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
1772 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
1773 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
1778 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
1781 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
1787 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
1790 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
1791 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
1796 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
1799 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
1800 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
1805 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
1808 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
1809 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
1816 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1817 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
1820 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
1821 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
1827 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
1830 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
1831 <literal>.example.com</literal>
1836 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
1839 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
1840 <literal>www.</literal>
1845 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
1848 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
1849 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
1856 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
1857 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
1858 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
1859 any single character, you can define character classes in square
1860 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
1865 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1868 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
1869 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
1874 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1877 matches all of the above, and then some.
1882 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
1885 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
1886 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
1891 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
1894 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
1895 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
1896 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
1897 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
1905 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1908 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1909 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
1912 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
1913 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
1918 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
1919 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
1920 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
1921 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
1922 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
1923 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
1927 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
1928 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
1929 for the beginning of a line).
1933 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
1934 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
1935 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
1936 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
1937 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
1943 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1946 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1948 <sect2 id="actions">
1949 <title>Actions</title>
1951 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
1952 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
1953 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
1954 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
1955 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
1956 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
1957 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
1958 previously applied.</quote>
1963 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
1964 separated by whitespace, like in
1965 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
1966 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
1967 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
1968 of the actions file.
1972 There are three classes of actions:
1979 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
1980 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
1984 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
1985 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
1988 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
1995 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2000 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2001 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2002 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2005 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2006 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2009 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
2015 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2016 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2017 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2018 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2019 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2020 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2024 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2025 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2026 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2027 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2030 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2031 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2039 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2040 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2041 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
2042 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2043 files will give a good starting point).
2047 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2048 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2049 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
2050 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
2051 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
2052 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
2053 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
2054 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
2057 <!-- start actions listing -->
2059 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2063 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2064 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2065 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2067 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2070 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2072 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2073 <title>add-header</title>
2077 <term>Typical use:</term>
2079 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2084 <term>Effect:</term>
2087 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2094 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2096 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2101 <term>Parameter:</term>
2104 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2105 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2115 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2116 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2117 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2124 <term>Example usage:</term>
2127 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2136 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2137 <title>block</title>
2141 <term>Typical use:</term>
2143 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
2148 <term>Effect:</term>
2151 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
2152 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
2153 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
2154 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
2161 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2163 <para>Boolean.</para>
2168 <term>Parameter:</term>
2178 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2179 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2180 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2181 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2182 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2183 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2184 right now, you can take a look at the
2185 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2189 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2190 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2191 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2192 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2193 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2194 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2197 It is important to understand this process, in order
2198 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2199 ads and other unwanted content.
2202 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2203 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2204 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2205 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2206 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2212 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2215 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2216 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2218 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
2229 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2230 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
2231 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
2235 <term>Typical use:</term>
2238 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
2244 <term>Effect:</term>
2247 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
2254 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2256 <para>Boolean.</para>
2261 <term>Parameter:</term>
2273 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
2274 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
2275 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
2276 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2279 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2280 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2281 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
2282 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
2288 <term>Example usage:</term>
2291 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
2299 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2300 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
2301 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
2305 <term>Typical use:</term>
2308 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
2314 <term>Effect:</term>
2317 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
2324 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2326 <para>Boolean.</para>
2331 <term>Parameter:</term>
2343 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
2344 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
2345 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
2346 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2349 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2350 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2351 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
2357 <term>Example usage:</term>
2360 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
2369 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2370 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
2371 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
2375 <term>Typical use:</term>
2377 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
2382 <term>Effect:</term>
2385 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
2392 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2394 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2399 <term>Parameter:</term>
2402 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2411 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2412 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2413 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2414 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2415 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2416 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2419 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
2420 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
2427 <term>Example usage:</term>
2430 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
2437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2438 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
2439 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
2443 <term>Typical use:</term>
2445 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
2450 <term>Effect:</term>
2453 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
2460 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2462 <para>Boolean.</para>
2467 <term>Parameter:</term>
2479 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
2480 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
2481 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
2482 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
2483 is a chance you might need this action.
2489 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2492 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
2493 problem-host.example.com</screen>
2501 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2502 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
2503 <title>fast-redirects</title>
2507 <term>Typical use:</term>
2509 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links</para>
2514 <term>Effect:</term>
2517 Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
2524 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2526 <para>Boolean.</para>
2531 <term>Parameter:</term>
2543 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2544 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
2545 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
2546 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
2547 <emphasis>http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else</emphasis>.
2550 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2551 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2552 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
2553 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
2554 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
2558 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
2559 It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly
2560 many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in
2561 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some sites just don't work without
2568 <term>Example usage:</term>
2571 <screen>{+fast-redirects}</screen>
2580 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2581 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
2582 <title>filter</title>
2586 <term>Typical use:</term>
2588 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
2593 <term>Effect:</term>
2596 All files of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which this
2597 action applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression
2598 based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
2599 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
2600 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they
2608 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2610 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2615 <term>Parameter:</term>
2618 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
2619 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
2620 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
2621 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>). When used in its negative form,
2622 and without parameters, filtering is completely disabled.
2631 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
2632 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
2636 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
2637 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
2638 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
2639 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
2640 noticeable on slower connections.
2643 This is very powerful feature, but <quote>rolling your own</quote>
2644 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
2647 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
2648 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
2649 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
2650 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
2651 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
2654 Inadequate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
2655 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
2656 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
2657 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
2658 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
2659 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> sections.
2662 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
2663 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
2664 would normally be sent compressed, use the
2665 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
2666 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
2669 Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
2670 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2671 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
2672 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
2673 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
2677 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
2678 improved filters is particularly welcome!
2681 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
2682 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
2683 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
2684 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
2690 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
2691 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
2692 more explanation on each:</term>
2695 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
2696 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
2699 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
2700 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
2703 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
2704 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
2707 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
2708 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
2711 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
2712 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
2715 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
2716 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows</screen>
2719 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
2720 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML</screen>
2723 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
2724 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
2727 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
2728 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
2731 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
2732 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
2735 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
2736 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
2739 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
2740 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
2743 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
2744 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
2747 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
2748 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable</screen>
2751 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
2752 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
2755 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
2756 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
2759 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
2760 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable</screen>
2763 <anchor id="filter-fun">
2764 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
2767 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
2768 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
2771 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
2772 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
2780 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2781 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
2782 <title>handle-as-image</title>
2786 <term>Typical use:</term>
2788 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
2793 <term>Effect:</term>
2796 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
2797 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
2798 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
2799 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
2800 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
2801 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
2808 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2810 <para>Boolean.</para>
2815 <term>Parameter:</term>
2827 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
2828 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
2832 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
2833 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
2834 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
2837 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
2838 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
2839 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
2840 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
2846 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
2849 <screen># Generic image extensions:
2852 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
2854 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
2855 # blocked as images:
2857 {+block +handle-as-image}
2858 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
2860 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
2870 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2871 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
2872 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
2876 <term>Typical use:</term>
2878 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
2883 <term>Effect:</term>
2886 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
2887 and prevents adding a new one.
2894 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2896 <para>Boolean.</para>
2901 <term>Parameter:</term>
2913 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
2916 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
2917 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
2918 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
2919 users sharing the same proxy.
2925 <term>Example usage:</term>
2928 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
2936 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2937 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
2938 <title>hide-from-header</title>
2942 <term>Typical use:</term>
2944 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
2949 <term>Effect:</term>
2952 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
2960 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2962 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2967 <term>Parameter:</term>
2970 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
2979 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
2980 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2984 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
2985 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
2986 is actually used by a real person.
2989 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
2990 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
2996 <term>Example usage:</term>
2999 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
3000 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
3008 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3009 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
3010 <title>hide-referrer</title>
3011 <anchor id="hide-referer">
3014 <term>Typical use:</term>
3016 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
3021 <term>Effect:</term>
3024 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
3025 or replaces it with a forged one.
3032 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3034 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3039 <term>Parameter:</term>
3043 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header completely.</para>
3046 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
3049 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
3059 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
3060 not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable
3061 content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded
3062 by <emphasis>their</emphasis> banners).
3065 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
3066 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
3067 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3068 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3069 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3075 <term>Example usage:</term>
3078 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
3079 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
3087 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3088 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
3089 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
3093 <term>Typical use:</term>
3095 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
3100 <term>Effect:</term>
3103 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
3104 in client requests with the specified value.
3111 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3113 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3118 <term>Parameter:</term>
3121 Any user-defined string.
3131 This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order
3132 to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
3133 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> a <ulink
3134 url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
3139 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
3140 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
3141 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
3142 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
3143 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
3144 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
3145 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
3146 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
3147 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
3148 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
3149 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
3152 This action is scheduled for improvement.
3158 <term>Example usage:</term>
3161 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
3169 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3170 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
3171 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
3175 <term>Typical use:</term>
3177 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
3182 <term>Effect:</term>
3185 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
3186 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
3193 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3195 <para>Boolean.</para>
3200 <term>Parameter:</term>
3212 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
3213 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
3214 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
3215 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
3217 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
3218 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
3219 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
3223 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
3224 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
3225 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
3226 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
3227 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
3228 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
3231 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
3232 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
3233 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
3234 </literal> does a fairly good job of catching only the unwanted ones.
3237 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
3238 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
3239 one), you might want to use
3241 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
3247 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
3255 <term>Example usage:</term>
3257 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
3264 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3265 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
3266 <title>limit-connect</title>
3270 <term>Typical use:</term>
3272 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay</para>
3277 <term>Effect:</term>
3280 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
3287 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3289 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3294 <term>Parameter:</term>
3297 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
3298 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
3307 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
3308 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
3309 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
3310 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
3311 for some or all destinations.
3314 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3315 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
3316 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
3317 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
3318 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3319 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3322 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3323 change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
3329 <term>Example usages:</term>
3331 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3332 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3333 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
3335 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
3336 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3337 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3338 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)</screen>
3345 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3346 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
3347 <title>prevent-compression</title>
3351 <term>Typical use:</term>
3354 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
3355 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s
3361 <term>Effect:</term>
3364 Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
3371 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3373 <para>Boolean.</para>
3378 <term>Parameter:</term>
3390 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
3391 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
3392 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
3393 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
3394 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
3395 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
3396 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
3397 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
3400 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
3401 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
3405 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
3406 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
3407 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
3413 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3416 <screen># Set default:
3418 {+prevent-compression}
3421 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
3423 {-prevent-compression}
3425 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
3434 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3435 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
3436 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
3440 <term>Typical use:</term>
3443 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
3449 <term>Effect:</term>
3452 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
3453 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
3460 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3462 <para>Boolean.</para>
3467 <term>Parameter:</term>
3479 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
3482 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3488 <term>Example usage:</term>
3491 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
3500 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3501 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
3502 <title>send-wafer</title>
3506 <term>Typical use:</term>
3509 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
3515 <term>Effect:</term>
3518 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
3525 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3527 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3532 <term>Parameter:</term>
3535 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
3536 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
3545 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
3546 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
3549 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3554 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3557 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
3558 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
3566 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3567 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
3568 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
3572 <term>Typical use:</term>
3575 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
3576 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
3582 <term>Effect:</term>
3585 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
3586 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
3587 forget them in between sessions.
3594 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3596 <para>Boolean.</para>
3601 <term>Parameter:</term>
3613 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
3614 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
3615 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
3618 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
3619 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
3620 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3621 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3622 sites, and is the recommended setting.
3625 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
3626 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
3627 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
3628 will be plainly killed.
3631 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
3632 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
3635 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
3636 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
3637 These would have to be removed manually.
3640 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
3641 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
3642 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
3643 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
3649 <term>Example usage:</term>
3652 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
3660 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3661 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
3662 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
3666 <term>Typical use:</term>
3668 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
3673 <term>Effect:</term>
3676 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3677 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
3678 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
3679 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
3680 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
3681 sent as a replacement.
3688 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3690 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3695 <term>Parameter:</term>
3700 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
3701 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
3706 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
3707 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
3708 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
3709 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
3714 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
3715 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
3716 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
3717 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
3720 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
3721 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
3722 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
3723 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
3724 it over and over again.
3735 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
3736 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
3737 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
3740 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
3741 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
3742 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
3748 <term>Example usage:</term>
3754 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
3757 Redirect to the BSD devil:
3760 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
3763 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
3766 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
3774 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3776 <title>Summary</title>
3778 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
3779 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
3780 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
3781 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
3782 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
3783 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
3789 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3790 <sect2 id="aliases">
3791 <title>Aliases</title>
3793 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
3794 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
3795 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
3796 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
3798 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
3799 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
3800 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
3801 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
3802 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
3806 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
3807 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
3808 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
3809 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
3813 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
3814 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
3815 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
3816 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
3817 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
3818 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
3819 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
3822 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
3823 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
3824 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
3825 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
3826 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
3828 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
3832 Now let's define some aliases...
3837 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
3839 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
3840 # must be at the top of the actions file!
3844 # These aliases just save typing later:
3845 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3847 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3848 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3849 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3850 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
3852 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3853 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3855 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>
3856 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
3858 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
3860 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
3861 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
3865 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
3866 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
3867 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
3872 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
3873 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
3876 .office.microsoft.com
3877 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
3881 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
3885 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3888 # These shops require pop-ups:
3890 {shop -kill-popups -filter{all-popups}}
3892 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
3896 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
3897 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
3898 in order to function properly.
3902 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3903 <sect2 id="act-examples">
3904 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
3906 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
3907 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
3908 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
3909 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
3910 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
3911 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
3912 file and see how all these pieces come together:
3915 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
3918 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
3922 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
3926 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
3927 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
3928 change or worry about:
3933 ##########################################################################
3934 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
3935 ##########################################################################
3938 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
3942 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
3943 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
3944 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
3949 ##########################################################################
3951 ##########################################################################
3954 # These aliases just save typing later:
3955 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3957 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3958 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3959 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3960 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
3962 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3963 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3965 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>
3966 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
3970 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
3971 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
3972 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
3973 enable the ones we want.
3977 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
3978 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
3979 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
3980 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
3981 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
3982 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
3983 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
3988 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
3989 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
3990 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
3991 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
3992 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
3993 multiple lines with line continuation.
3998 ##########################################################################
3999 # "Defaults" section:
4000 ##########################################################################
4002 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
4003 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
4004 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
4005 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
4006 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
4007 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
4008 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
4009 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
4010 -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-EVENTS">filter{js-events}</link> \
4011 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
4012 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
4013 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
4014 +<link linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{unsolicited-popups}</link> \
4015 -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> \
4016 +<link linkend="FILTER-IMG-REORDER">filter{img-reorder}</link> \
4017 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
4018 -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">filter{banners-by-link}</link> \
4019 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
4020 -<link linkend="FILTER-TINY-TEXTFORMS">filter{tiny-textforms}</link> \
4021 +<link linkend="FILTER-JUMPING-WINDOWS">filter{jumping-windows}</link> \
4022 -<link linkend="FILTER-FRAMESET-BORDERS">filter{frameset-borders}</link> \
4023 -<link linkend="FILTER-DEMORONIZER">filter{demoronizer}</link> \
4024 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
4025 -<link linkend="FILTER-QUICKTIME-KIOSKMODE">filter{quicktime-kioskmode}</link> \
4026 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
4027 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
4028 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
4029 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
4030 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
4031 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
4032 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
4033 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
4034 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
4035 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
4036 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
4037 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
4038 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
4039 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
4040 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
4042 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
4046 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
4047 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
4048 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
4049 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
4050 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
4051 want to block in later sections.
4055 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
4056 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
4057 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
4058 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
4059 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
4060 of actions explicitly:
4065 ##########################################################################
4066 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
4067 ##########################################################################
4069 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
4072 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
4073 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
4077 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
4078 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
4079 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
4088 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4090 .scan.co.uk</screen>
4093 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
4096 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
4097 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
4098 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
4099 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
4101 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
4102 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
4103 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
4104 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
4105 chosen in the defaults section:
4110 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
4112 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
4115 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
4118 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
4121 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
4122 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
4123 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
4128 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
4132 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
4133 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
4134 .nytimes.com</screen>
4138 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
4139 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
4140 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
4141 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
4142 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
4143 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
4144 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
4145 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
4146 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
4152 ##########################################################################
4154 ##########################################################################
4156 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
4157 # blocked further down this file:
4159 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
4160 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
4164 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
4165 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
4166 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
4167 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
4168 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
4169 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
4170 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
4171 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
4172 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
4173 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
4174 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
4175 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
4180 # Known ad generators:
4185 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
4186 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4187 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4194 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
4195 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
4196 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
4197 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
4198 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
4199 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
4200 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
4201 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
4202 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
4205 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
4206 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
4207 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
4208 to keep the example short:
4213 ##########################################################################
4214 # Block these fine banners:
4215 ##########################################################################
4216 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
4224 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
4225 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
4227 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
4229 .hitbox.com</screen>
4233 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
4234 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
4235 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
4236 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
4239 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
4240 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
4241 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
4242 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
4243 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
4244 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
4248 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
4249 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
4250 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
4251 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
4252 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
4253 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
4254 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
4255 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
4256 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
4257 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
4262 ##########################################################################
4263 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
4264 ##########################################################################
4268 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4269 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
4270 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
4271 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
4272 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
4273 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
4281 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
4282 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
4286 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
4287 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
4288 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
4289 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
4290 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
4295 # Don't filter code!
4297 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
4299 .sourceforge.net</screen>
4303 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
4304 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
4309 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
4312 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
4313 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
4314 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
4315 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
4316 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
4317 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
4318 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
4319 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
4320 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
4321 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
4322 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
4323 to install updated versions from time to time.
4327 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
4328 <filename>user.action</filename>:
4332 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
4336 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
4340 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
4341 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
4342 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
4347 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
4348 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
4352 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
4353 # be self explanatory.
4355 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
4356 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
4357 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
4358 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
4359 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
4360 -block-as-image = -block
4362 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
4363 # certain types of sites:
4365 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer -kill-popups
4366 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
4368 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
4370 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}</screen>
4376 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
4377 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
4378 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
4379 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
4380 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
4381 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
4386 { allow-all-cookies }
4392 .redhat.com</screen>
4396 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
4401 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
4402 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
4406 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
4411 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
4412 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
4417 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
4418 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
4420 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
4424 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
4425 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
4426 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
4427 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
4428 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
4429 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
4430 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
4431 in default.action anyway:
4436 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4437 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.gif
4438 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
4442 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
4443 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
4444 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
4445 the file type just by looking at the URL.
4446 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
4448 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
4449 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
4450 browser. Use cautiously.
4458 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
4462 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
4463 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
4464 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
4465 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
4466 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
4467 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
4468 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
4469 that is causing the problem or not.
4475 .forbes.com</screen>
4479 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
4480 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
4481 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
4482 update-safe config, once and for all:
4487 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
4488 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
4492 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
4493 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
4494 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
4495 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
4496 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
4500 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
4501 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
4502 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
4503 sites that you feel provide value to you:
4515 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
4516 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
4517 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
4518 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
4522 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
4523 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
4524 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
4525 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
4526 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
4527 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
4533 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
4534 / # ALL sites</screen>
4540 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4544 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4546 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4548 <sect1 id="filter-file">
4549 <title>The Filter File</title>
4552 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
4553 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
4554 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
4555 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
4556 selected through the <literal>
4557 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
4562 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
4563 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
4564 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
4565 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
4566 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
4567 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
4571 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including
4572 HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
4573 MIME types, <emphasis>except</emphasis> <literal>text/plain</literal>).
4574 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
4575 your own</quote> filters, you should be familiar with HTML syntax.
4579 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
4580 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
4581 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
4582 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
4583 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
4584 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
4585 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
4586 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
4587 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
4588 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
4589 user interface</ulink>.
4593 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
4594 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
4595 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
4596 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
4600 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
4605 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
4609 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
4610 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
4611 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
4612 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
4613 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
4614 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.3.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
4615 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
4616 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
4617 to ungreedy matching.
4621 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
4622 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
4623 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
4625 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
4626 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
4627 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
4628 expressions</ulink> in general.
4629 The below examples might also help to get you started.
4633 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4635 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
4637 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
4638 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
4639 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
4644 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
4648 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
4649 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
4650 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
4651 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
4655 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4659 Our complete filter now looks like this:
4662 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
4663 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4667 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
4668 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
4669 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
4675 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
4677 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
4679 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
4683 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
4684 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
4685 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
4686 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
4690 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
4691 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
4692 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
4693 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
4694 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
4698 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
4699 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
4700 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
4701 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
4702 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
4703 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
4704 in the page (and appear in that order).
4708 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
4709 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
4710 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
4711 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
4712 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
4716 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
4717 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
4718 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
4719 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
4720 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
4721 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
4722 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
4723 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
4724 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
4725 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
4726 substitution is global.
4730 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
4731 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
4732 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
4733 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
4734 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
4738 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
4739 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
4740 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
4741 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
4742 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
4743 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
4744 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
4745 Business!"</literal>.
4749 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
4750 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
4751 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
4752 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
4753 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
4754 information anymore.
4758 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
4759 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
4764 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
4766 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
4770 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
4771 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
4772 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
4773 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
4774 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
4775 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
4776 a backreference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
4777 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
4778 a backreference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
4782 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
4783 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
4784 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
4785 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
4786 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
4787 you move your mouse over links.
4792 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
4794 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
4799 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
4800 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
4801 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
4802 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
4803 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
4804 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
4805 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
4806 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
4807 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
4808 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
4813 The last example is from the fun department:
4818 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
4820 # Spice the daily news:
4822 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
4826 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
4827 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
4828 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
4829 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
4830 still replacing the word everywhere else.
4835 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
4837 s* industry[ -]leading \
4839 | customer[ -]focused \
4840 | market[ -]driven \
4841 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
4842 | high[ -]performance \
4843 | solutions[ -]based \
4847 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
4852 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
4853 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
4861 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4863 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
4867 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
4868 keep these listings in sync.
4873 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
4874 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
4879 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
4882 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
4887 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
4888 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
4889 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
4894 removes the bindings to the DOM's
4895 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
4896 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
4897 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
4902 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
4903 full-screen, non-resizable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
4912 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
4915 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
4916 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
4917 resizing etc, anymore.
4920 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
4921 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
4928 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
4931 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
4934 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
4935 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
4936 resizable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
4937 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
4943 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
4946 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialogue, where they can be intercepted
4948 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
4949 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
4950 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
4951 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
4954 This filter disables HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets cookies. Use
4955 it wherever you would also use the cookie crunch actions.
4961 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
4964 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
4965 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
4966 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
4973 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
4976 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
4977 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
4978 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
4979 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
4982 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
4983 function to a dummy function during the loading and rendering phase of each
4984 HTML page access, and restoring the function afterwards.
4990 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
4993 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
4994 Note this should be used with more discretion than the above, since it is
4995 more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal usage. Use
5002 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
5005 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
5006 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
5007 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
5013 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
5016 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
5017 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
5018 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
5021 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
5022 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
5028 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
5031 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
5032 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
5033 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
5039 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
5042 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
5043 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
5044 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
5045 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
5046 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
5047 the use ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
5048 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
5051 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
5057 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
5060 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
5061 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
5062 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
5063 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
5066 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
5072 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
5075 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
5076 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
5077 or behave as intended when using this filter.
5083 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
5086 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
5087 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
5088 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
5089 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
5090 small to show their whole content.
5093 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
5100 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
5103 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
5104 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This causes those
5105 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
5108 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
5109 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
5110 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
5111 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if wierd garbage characters
5112 sometimes appear on some pages.
5118 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
5121 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
5122 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
5130 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
5133 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
5134 prevents saving, is disabled.
5140 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
5143 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
5144 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
5150 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
5153 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
5154 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
5160 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
5163 A collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
5164 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
5167 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
5168 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
5174 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
5177 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
5178 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
5181 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
5182 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
5183 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
5184 anything regarding this filter.
5191 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
5205 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5209 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5211 <sect1 id="templates">
5212 <title>Templates</title>
5214 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
5215 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
5216 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
5217 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
5219 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
5220 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
5221 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
5226 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
5227 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
5229 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
5233 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
5234 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
5235 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
5236 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
5237 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
5238 ignored when the templates are filled in.
5242 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
5243 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
5244 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
5245 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
5246 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
5250 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
5251 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
5252 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
5253 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
5254 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
5259 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
5261 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
5263 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
5267 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
5268 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
5269 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
5273 <screen><!-- --></screen>
5277 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
5278 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
5283 All templates refer to a style located at
5284 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
5285 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
5286 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
5287 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
5292 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5296 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5298 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
5301 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
5303 <!-- end boilerplate -->
5307 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5310 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5311 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
5313 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
5315 <!-- end copyright -->
5317 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5318 <sect2><title>License</title>
5319 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
5321 <!-- end copyright -->
5323 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5326 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5328 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
5329 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
5331 <!-- end history -->
5334 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
5335 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
5337 <!-- end authors -->
5342 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5345 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5346 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
5347 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
5349 <!-- end seealso -->
5354 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5355 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
5358 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5360 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
5362 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
5363 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
5364 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
5365 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
5366 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
5370 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
5371 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
5372 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
5373 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
5377 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
5378 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
5379 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
5380 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
5381 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
5382 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
5383 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
5384 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
5388 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
5389 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
5390 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
5391 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
5392 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
5393 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
5394 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
5395 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
5399 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
5400 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
5401 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
5402 and then some examples:
5407 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
5408 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
5410 </simplelist></para>
5414 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
5417 </simplelist></para>
5421 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
5424 </simplelist></para>
5428 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
5431 </simplelist></para>
5435 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
5436 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
5437 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
5438 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
5439 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
5440 meta-character meaning of any single character).
5442 </simplelist></para>
5446 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
5447 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
5448 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
5449 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
5451 </simplelist></para>
5455 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
5456 or multiple sub-expressions.
5458 </simplelist></para>
5462 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
5463 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
5464 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
5465 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
5466 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
5467 example</quote>, and nothing else.
5469 </simplelist></para>
5472 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
5473 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
5474 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
5475 be more illuminating:
5479 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
5480 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
5481 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
5482 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
5483 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
5484 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
5485 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
5486 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
5487 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
5488 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
5489 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
5490 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
5491 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
5492 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
5497 A now something a little more complex:
5501 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
5502 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
5503 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
5504 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
5505 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
5506 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
5507 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
5512 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
5513 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
5514 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
5515 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
5516 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
5517 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
5518 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
5519 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
5520 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
5521 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
5522 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
5523 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
5524 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
5525 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
5526 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
5527 changing our regular expression to:
5528 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
5533 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
5534 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
5535 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
5536 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
5537 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
5538 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
5539 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
5540 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
5541 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
5542 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
5543 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
5544 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
5545 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
5546 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
5547 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
5548 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
5549 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
5550 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
5551 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
5552 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
5553 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
5554 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
5555 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
5556 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
5557 in the expression anywhere).
5561 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
5562 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
5563 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
5564 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
5565 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
5570 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
5571 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
5575 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
5576 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
5581 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5584 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5586 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
5589 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
5590 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
5591 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
5592 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
5593 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
5594 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
5595 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
5601 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
5602 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
5603 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
5604 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
5617 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
5621 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
5622 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
5623 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
5629 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
5630 editing of actions files:
5634 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
5641 Show the source code version numbers:
5645 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
5652 Show the browser's request headers:
5656 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
5663 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
5667 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5674 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
5675 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
5679 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
5683 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
5687 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
5692 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
5701 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
5705 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
5706 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
5708 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
5709 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
5710 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
5711 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
5712 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
5713 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
5716 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
5717 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
5718 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
5719 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
5720 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
5721 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
5730 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>
5737 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>
5744 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)
5751 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>
5757 <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>
5762 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
5769 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
5770 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
5771 have more information about bookmarklets.
5780 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5782 <title>Chain of Events</title>
5784 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
5785 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
5792 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
5793 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
5794 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
5800 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
5801 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
5806 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
5808 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
5809 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
5810 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
5811 is then checked and if it does not match, an
5812 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
5813 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
5814 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
5815 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
5820 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
5821 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
5826 If the URL pattern matches the <link
5827 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
5828 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
5833 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
5834 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
5835 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
5836 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
5842 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
5848 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
5849 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
5850 filtered as determined by the
5851 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
5852 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
5853 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
5859 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
5860 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
5861 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
5866 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5868 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5869 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
5870 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
5871 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
5872 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
5873 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
5874 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
5875 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
5876 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
5879 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5881 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5882 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
5883 to the client browser as it becomes available.
5888 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
5889 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
5890 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
5891 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
5892 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
5893 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
5903 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5904 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
5905 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
5908 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
5909 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
5910 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
5911 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
5912 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
5913 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
5914 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
5915 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
5916 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
5921 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
5922 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
5923 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
5924 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
5925 logs is a good idea too.
5929 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
5930 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5931 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
5932 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
5936 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
5937 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
5938 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
5939 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
5940 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
5941 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
5942 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
5943 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
5944 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
5945 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
5946 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
5947 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
5948 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
5953 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
5954 and look at it one section at a time:
5959 Matches for http://google.com:
5961 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5965 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5966 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5967 +deanimate-gifs{last}
5968 -downgrade-http-version
5972 -filter{shockwave-flash}
5973 -filter{crude-parental}
5974 +filter{html-annoyances}
5975 +filter{js-annoyances}
5976 +filter{content-cookies}
5978 +filter{refresh-tags}
5980 +filter{banners-by-size}
5981 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5982 +hide-from-header{block}
5983 +hide-referer{forge}
5988 +prevent-compression
5991 +session-cookies-only
5992 +set-image-blocker{pattern} }
5995 { -session-cookies-only }
6001 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
6002 (no matches in this file)
6007 This tells us how we have defined our
6008 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
6009 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
6010 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
6011 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
6012 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
6013 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
6014 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
6015 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
6016 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
6017 -- <quote>/</quote>.
6021 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
6022 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
6023 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
6024 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
6026 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
6027 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
6028 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
6030 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
6031 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
6032 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
6033 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
6034 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
6035 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
6036 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
6041 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
6045 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
6046 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
6047 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
6058 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6059 -crunch-incoming-cookies
6060 +deanimate-gifs{last}
6061 -downgrade-http-version
6065 -filter{shockwave-flash}
6066 -filter{crude-parental}
6067 +filter{html-annoyances}
6068 +filter{js-annoyances}
6069 +filter{content-cookies}
6071 +filter{refresh-tags}
6073 +filter{banners-by-size}
6074 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
6075 +hide-from-header{block}
6076 +hide-referer{forge}
6081 +prevent-compression
6084 -session-cookies-only
6085 +set-image-blocker{pattern}
6090 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
6091 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
6095 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
6101 { +block +handle-as-image }
6104 { +block +handle-as-image }
6107 { +block +handle-as-image }
6113 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
6114 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
6115 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
6116 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
6117 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
6118 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
6123 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
6124 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
6125 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
6126 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
6127 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
6128 is done here -- as both a <link
6129 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
6130 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
6132 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
6133 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
6138 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
6139 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
6145 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
6147 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
6151 -crunch-incoming-cookies
6152 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6154 -downgrade-http-version
6156 +filter{html-annoyances}
6157 +filter{js-annoyances}
6158 +filter{kill-popups}
6161 +filter{banners-by-size}
6164 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
6165 +hide-from-header{block}
6166 +hide-referer{forge}
6170 +prevent-compression
6173 +session-cookies-only
6174 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
6177 { +block +handle-as-image }
6183 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
6184 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
6185 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
6186 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
6187 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
6199 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
6200 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
6204 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
6211 { +block +handle-as-image }
6217 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
6218 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
6219 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
6220 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
6221 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. These
6222 tend to be harder to troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of
6223 aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
6231 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6239 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
6240 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
6241 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
6254 This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most
6255 appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
6260 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
6261 <quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote> rule, which assumes
6262 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well most of the time
6263 since these tend to be standardized).
6267 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
6268 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
6269 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
6270 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
6279 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
6280 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
6281 Public License as published by the Free Software
6282 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
6283 your option) any later version.
6285 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
6286 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
6287 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
6288 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
6289 License for more details.
6291 The GNU General Public License should be included with
6292 this file. If not, you can view it at
6293 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
6294 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
6295 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
6297 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
6298 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
6301 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
6302 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
6304 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
6307 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
6308 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
6309 is dependent on browser.
6311 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
6312 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
6314 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
6315 Some minor clarifications
6317 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
6318 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
6319 and copyright notice dates.
6321 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
6322 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
6324 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
6325 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
6327 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
6328 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
6330 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
6331 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
6332 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
6334 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
6335 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
6338 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
6339 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
6341 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
6342 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
6344 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
6345 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
6347 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
6348 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
6349 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
6352 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
6353 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
6355 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
6356 Added documentation for new chroot option
6358 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
6359 Adapted to the new filters
6361 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
6362 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
6365 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
6366 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
6368 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
6369 Add demoronizer to filter section.
6371 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
6372 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
6374 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
6375 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
6376 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
6378 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
6379 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
6381 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
6382 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
6385 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
6386 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
6388 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
6389 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
6391 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
6392 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
6394 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
6395 Nits re: actions file download
6397 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
6398 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
6400 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
6401 Added 2 Gentoo sections
6403 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
6404 - Added version info to title
6405 - Added info on new filters
6406 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
6407 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
6409 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
6410 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
6412 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
6414 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
6416 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
6417 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
6419 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
6420 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
6422 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
6423 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
6425 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
6426 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
6427 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
6428 so that these are in sync with each other.
6430 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
6431 Ooops missed something from David.
6433 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
6434 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
6435 That's a wrap, I think.
6437 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
6438 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
6440 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
6441 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
6443 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
6444 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
6445 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
6447 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
6448 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
6450 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
6451 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
6452 <literal><link> style.
6453 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
6454 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
6455 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
6456 renders them red (bad in TOC).
6458 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
6459 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
6461 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
6464 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
6465 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
6466 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
6468 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
6469 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
6470 - Small changes to Regex appendix
6471 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
6473 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
6474 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
6476 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
6477 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
6479 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
6480 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
6482 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
6483 Extended and further commented the example actions files
6485 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
6486 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
6489 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
6492 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
6493 Restored alphabetical order of actions
6495 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
6496 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
6498 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
6499 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
6501 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
6502 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
6503 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
6505 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
6506 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
6507 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
6508 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
6510 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
6511 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
6513 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
6516 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
6517 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
6518 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
6520 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
6521 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
6523 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
6524 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
6525 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
6527 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
6528 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
6530 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
6531 more structure in starting section
6533 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
6534 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
6535 will probably break links elsewhere :(
6537 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
6538 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
6539 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
6541 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
6542 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
6543 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
6545 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
6546 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
6548 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
6549 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
6550 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
6552 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
6553 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
6554 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
6556 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
6557 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
6559 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
6560 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
6562 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
6563 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
6565 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
6566 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
6568 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
6569 Updated OSX installation section
6570 Added a few English tweaks here an there
6572 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
6573 Re-write actions section.
6575 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
6576 Fix ugly typo (mine).
6578 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
6579 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
6581 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
6582 Added RPM install detail
6584 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
6587 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
6588 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
6590 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
6591 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
6593 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
6594 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
6596 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
6599 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
6600 Proofreading, part one
6602 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
6603 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
6604 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
6606 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
6607 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
6609 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
6610 Add small section on submitting actions.
6612 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
6615 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
6616 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
6618 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
6619 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
6621 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
6624 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
6625 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
6626 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
6627 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
6628 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
6630 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
6631 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
6633 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
6634 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
6636 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
6637 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
6638 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
6639 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
6640 eventually be set by Makefile.
6641 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
6643 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
6644 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
6646 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
6647 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
6649 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
6650 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
6652 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
6653 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
6654 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
6655 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
6657 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
6660 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
6661 Added more to Anatomy section.
6663 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
6664 Touch up intro for new name.
6666 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
6667 we have a new homepage!
6669 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
6670 A few minor catch ups with name change.
6672 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
6673 configure needs to be generated.
6675 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
6676 we are too lazy to make a block-built
6677 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
6679 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
6680 name change related issue.
6682 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
6683 name change. changed filenames.
6685 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
6688 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
6689 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
6690 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
6691 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
6692 comments and remarks to history untouched.
6694 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
6697 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
6698 New section in Appendix.
6700 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
6701 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
6703 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
6704 correct feedback channels
6706 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
6707 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
6709 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
6712 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
6713 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
6715 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
6716 Added imageblock{pattern}.
6718 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
6721 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
6722 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
6724 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
6725 provide correct feedback channels
6727 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
6728 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
6730 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
6731 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
6733 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
6734 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
6736 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
6737 Add new - - user option.
6739 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
6740 Added section on command line options.
6742 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
6743 Changed default port to 8118
6745 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
6746 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
6748 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
6749 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
6750 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
6753 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
6756 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
6757 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
6759 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
6760 Update OS/2 build section
6762 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
6763 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
6764 will work - no other changes are needed.
6766 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
6767 Added a very short section on Templates
6769 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
6770 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
6772 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
6773 Touch ups for *.action files.
6775 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
6778 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
6779 Updates for recent changes.
6781 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
6782 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
6784 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
6785 Correct 2 minor errors
6787 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
6788 *** empty log message ***
6790 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
6791 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
6793 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
6794 wrong url in documentation
6796 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
6797 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
6799 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
6802 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
6805 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
6808 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
6809 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
6811 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
6812 Some additions, and re-arranging.
6814 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
6817 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
6818 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
6820 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
6823 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
6824 source files for junkbuster documentation
6826 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
6827 first proposal of a structure.
6829 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
6830 docs should have an author.
6832 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
6833 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob