1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "INCLUDE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "2.9.14">
12 <!entity p-status "beta">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
14 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
16 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
17 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
21 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
24 This file belongs into
25 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
27 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes Exp $
29 Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
30 Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
32 Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
33 by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
34 Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
37 ========================================================================
38 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
39 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
40 ========================================================================
46 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
48 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes Exp $</pubdate>
53 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
62 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
63 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
64 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
70 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
72 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
75 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
77 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
80 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
81 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
82 Please see the <ulink url="contact.html">Contact section</ulink> on how to
83 contact the developers.
87 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
93 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
94 <sect1 id="intro" label=""><title></title>
95 <!-- dummy section to force TOC on page by itself -->
96 <!-- DO NOT REMOVE! please ;) -->
100 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
102 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
105 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
106 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
107 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
108 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
109 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
110 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
111 earlier versions. The target release date for
112 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
116 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
118 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
119 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
120 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
125 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
126 <sect2 id="newfeatures">
127 <title>New Features</title>
129 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
130 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
131 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
132 some of them currently under development]]>:
133 <anchor id="testing"/>
136 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
138 <!-- end boilerplate -->
143 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
146 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
147 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
149 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
150 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
151 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
152 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project Page</ulink>.
155 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
156 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
157 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
158 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
159 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
163 <!-- Include supported.sgml boilerplate -->
165 <!-- end boilerplate -->
167 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
168 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
170 Binary packages can be downloaded from our <ulink
171 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project Page</ulink>.
175 How to install them depends on your operating system:
178 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
179 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Redhat and SuSE RPMs</title>
182 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh <name-of-rpm.rpm></literal>,
183 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for configuration files.
187 Note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
188 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
192 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
193 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, HP-UX</title>
196 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
197 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
202 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
203 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
206 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
207 the installation process.
211 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
212 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
215 Just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will guide
216 you through the installation process. A shadow of the
217 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
218 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
222 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
223 into will contain all of the configuration files.
227 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
228 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
234 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
235 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
237 Unpack the <literal>.lha</literal> archive, then FIXME.
242 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
243 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
245 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
247 <!-- end boilerplate -->
250 For more detailed instructions, on how to build Redhat and SuSE RPMs,
251 Windows self-extracting installers etc, and for building from CVS sources,
252 please consult the <ulink url="../developer-manual/newrelease.html">developer
259 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
262 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
264 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
267 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
268 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
269 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
271 There are very significant changes from older versions of
272 <application>Junkbuster</application> to the current
273 <application>Privoxy</application>. Configuration is substantially
274 changed. <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> and earlier
275 configuration files will not migrate. The functionality of the old
276 <filename>blockfile</filename>, <filename>cookiefile</filename> and
277 <filename>imagelist</filename>, are now combined into the
278 <quote>actions file</quote> (<filename>default.action</filename>
279 for most installations).
282 A <quote>filter file</quote> (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>)
283 is new with <application>Privoxy 2.9.x</application>, and provides some
284 of the new sophistication (explained below). <filename>config</filename> is
285 much the same as before.
288 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
289 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
290 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
291 to the new actions file, please note that even the pattern syntax has
293 If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still recommended
294 to use the new configuration files.
297 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
305 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
311 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
312 important configuration files!
317 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
318 at the special URL: <ulink
319 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
320 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
321 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
322 <application>Privoxy</application>.
327 The primary configuration file for cookie management, ad and banner
328 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
329 configuration is <filename>default.action</filename>. It is strongly
330 recommended to become familiar with the new actions concept below,
331 before modifying this file.
336 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
337 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
338 Some installers may not automatically start
339 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
348 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
350 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
352 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
353 will want to configure your browser(s) to use <application>Privoxy</application>
354 as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is localhost for the proxy address,
355 and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 8000). This is the one required
356 configuration that must be done!
360 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
361 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
362 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
363 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
364 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
365 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
366 localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
370 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
371 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
372 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
373 <application>Privoxy</application>.
378 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
379 main configuration file to be used on the command line. Example Unix startup
386 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
392 An init script is provided for SuSE and Redhat.
396 For for SuSE: <command>rcprivoxy start</command>
400 For RedHat: <command>/etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start</command>
405 If no configuration file is specified on the command line,
406 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
407 <filename>config</filename> in the current directory. Except on Win32 where
408 it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>. If no file is specified on the
409 command line and no default configuration file can be found,
410 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
415 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
416 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
417 <quote>actions</quote> files. These are where various cookie actions are
418 defined, ad and banner blocking, and other aspects of
419 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several such
420 files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
424 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent
425 cookies, and add these to <filename>default.action</filename> as needed. By
426 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
427 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), until you add them to the
428 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
429 to edit <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you
430 use more than one browser, it would make more sense to let
431 <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the
432 browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
436 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
437 sites is the popup-killing (through the <literal>+popup</literal> and
438 <literal>+filter{popups}</literal> actions), because your favorite shopping,
439 banking, or leisure site may need popups.
443 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
444 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
445 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
446 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
447 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
448 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
449 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
450 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
451 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
455 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
456 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
457 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
458 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote> (as specified in <filename>default.action</filename>)
459 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
460 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
461 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
462 and then follow the link to <quote>edit the actions list</quote>.
463 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
467 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
468 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
469 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
470 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
471 to a given URL. In addition to the <filename>default.action</filename> file
472 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
473 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
477 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
478 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
479 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
480 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
481 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
482 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
487 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
488 url="configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
489 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
494 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
495 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
496 chapter "Contacting the Developers, .." below.
502 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
504 <title>Command Line Options</title>
506 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
507 command-line options:
515 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
518 Print version info and exit, Unix only.
523 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
526 Print a short usage info and exit, Unix only.
531 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
534 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
535 leader, don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
540 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
544 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
545 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
546 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
547 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
552 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
556 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
557 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
558 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
563 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
566 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
567 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
568 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
569 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
570 full path to avoid confusion.
581 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
584 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
585 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
587 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
588 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
589 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
590 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
595 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
598 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
600 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
601 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
602 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
603 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
604 You will see the following section:
611 Please choose from the following options:
614 * Show information about the current configuration
615 * Show the source code version numbers
616 * Show the request headers.
617 * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
618 * Toggle Privoxy on or off
619 * Edit the actions list
625 This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for the
626 <quote>actions list</quote>, which is where much of the ad, banner, cookie,
627 and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
628 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
629 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
630 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
634 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
635 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
636 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
637 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
638 to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled. There
639 is even a toggle Bookmarklet offered, so that you can toggle
640 <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from your browser.
646 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
651 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
654 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
656 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
657 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
658 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
659 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
660 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
661 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
665 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though possibly
666 aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are only three
667 default configuration files (this may change in time):
675 The main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>
676 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
683 <filename>default.action</filename> (the actions file) is used to define
684 which of a set of various <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners,
685 pop-ups, access restrictions, banners and cookies are to be applied where.
686 There is a web based editor for this file that can be accessed at <ulink
687 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/</ulink>
688 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/edit-actions/">http://p.p/edit-actions/</ulink>).
689 (Other actions files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
690 and blocking, e.g. <filename>basic.action</filename>.)
696 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the filter file) can be used to re-write the raw
697 page content, including viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript,
698 and whatever else lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only
699 pre-defined here; whether to apply them or not is up to the actions file.
707 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
708 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
709 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
710 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
711 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
712 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
717 <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>default.filter</filename>
718 can use Perl style regular expressions for maximum flexibility.
722 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
723 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
724 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
725 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
726 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
727 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
728 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
733 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
734 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
735 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
736 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
742 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
745 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
747 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
748 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
749 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
750 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
758 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis>
765 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
766 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
767 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
771 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
772 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
773 for what happens if you leave them unset.
777 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
778 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply to all URLs, no matter
779 where you may be surfing).
783 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
786 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
789 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
790 other files for additional configuration and logging.
791 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
792 where to find those other files.
796 <sect4><title>confdir</title>
800 <term>Specifies:</term>
802 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
806 <term>Type of value:</term>
808 <para>Path name</para>
812 <term>Default value:</term>
814 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
818 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
820 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
827 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
830 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
831 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
832 For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
833 <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
834 output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
842 <sect4><title>logdir</title>
846 <term>Specifies:</term>
849 The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
850 <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
855 <term>Type of value:</term>
857 <para>Path name</para>
861 <term>Default value:</term>
863 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
867 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
869 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
876 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
883 <sect4><title>actionsfile</title>
887 <term>Specifies:</term>
890 The actions file to use
895 <term>Type of value:</term>
897 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
901 <term>Default value:</term>
903 <para>default.action (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.action.txt (Windows)</para>
907 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
910 No action is taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
918 There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without
919 an actions file. There are three different actions files included in the
920 distribution, with varying degrees of aggressiveness:
921 <filename>default.action</filename>, <filename>intermediate.action</filename> and
922 <filename>advanced.action</filename>.
929 <sect4><title>filterfile</title>
933 <term>Specifies:</term>
936 The filter file to use
941 <term>Type of value:</term>
943 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
947 <term>Default value:</term>
949 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
953 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
956 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
957 <literal>+filter{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
958 actions in the actions file are turned off
966 The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
967 that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
968 changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
969 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
970 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
971 it appears on a Web page.
978 <sect4><title>logfile</title>
982 <term>Specifies:</term>
990 <term>Type of value:</term>
992 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
996 <term>Default value:</term>
998 <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
1002 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1005 No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>stderr</literal>).
1013 The windows version will additionally log to the console.
1016 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
1017 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
1018 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
1019 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
1020 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
1023 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
1024 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
1025 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Redhat, a <command>logrotate</command>
1026 script has been included.
1029 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
1030 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
1031 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
1032 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
1039 <sect4><title>jarfile</title>
1043 <term>Specifies:</term>
1046 The file to store intercepted cookies in
1051 <term>Type of value:</term>
1053 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1057 <term>Default value:</term>
1059 <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
1063 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1066 Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
1074 The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
1081 <sect4><title>trustfile</title>
1085 <term>Specifies:</term>
1088 The trust file to use
1093 <term>Type of value:</term>
1095 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1099 <term>Default value:</term>
1101 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
1105 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1108 The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
1116 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
1117 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
1120 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
1121 access to sites that are named in the trustfile.
1122 You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
1123 the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
1124 trusted referrer was used.
1125 The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
1126 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
1129 If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
1138 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1142 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1145 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
1148 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
1149 that just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
1150 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies etc.
1153 <sect4><title>trust-info-url</title>
1157 <term>Specifies:</term>
1160 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
1165 <term>Type of value:</term>
1171 <term>Default value:</term>
1173 <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
1177 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1180 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
1188 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
1189 activated. (See <literal>trustfile</literal> above.)
1192 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
1193 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
1194 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
1197 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
1198 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
1205 <sect4><title>admin-address</title>
1209 <term>Specifies:</term>
1212 An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
1217 <term>Type of value:</term>
1219 <para>Email address</para>
1223 <term>Default value:</term>
1225 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1229 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1232 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1240 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1241 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1249 <sect4><title>proxy-info-url</title>
1253 <term>Specifies:</term>
1256 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
1257 configuration or policies.
1262 <term>Type of value:</term>
1268 <term>Default value:</term>
1270 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1274 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1277 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1285 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1286 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1290 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
1298 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1300 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1303 <title>Debugging</title>
1306 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
1307 Note that you might also want to invoke
1308 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
1309 command line option when debugging.
1312 <sect4><title>debug</title>
1316 <term>Specifies:</term>
1319 Key values that determine what information gets logged.
1324 <term>Type of value:</term>
1326 <para>Integer values</para>
1330 <term>Default value:</term>
1332 <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
1336 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1339 Nothing gets logged.
1347 The available debug levels are:
1351 debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1352 debug 2 # show each connection status
1353 debug 4 # show I/O status
1354 debug 8 # show header parsing
1355 debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
1356 debug 32 # debug force feature
1357 debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
1358 debug 128 # debug fast redirects
1359 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1360 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1361 debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
1362 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1363 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1367 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1368 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
1371 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
1372 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
1373 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
1374 only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
1375 a hell of an output (especially 16).
1379 The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
1380 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1383 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1384 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
1391 <sect4><title>single-threaded</title>
1395 <term>Specifies:</term>
1398 Whether to run only one server thread
1403 <term>Type of value:</term>
1405 <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
1409 <term>Default value:</term>
1411 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1415 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1418 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
1419 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
1427 This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
1428 need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
1437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1440 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
1443 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
1444 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
1447 <sect4><title>listen-address</title>
1451 <term>Specifies:</term>
1454 The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
1455 listen for client requests.
1460 <term>Type of value:</term>
1462 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1466 <term>Default value:</term>
1468 <para>localhost:8118</para>
1472 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1475 Bind to localhost (127.0.0.1), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
1476 home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
1485 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
1488 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1489 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1490 will need to override the default.
1493 If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
1494 bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
1495 from the Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (acl's)
1496 (see <quote>ACLs</quote> below), or a firewall.
1501 <term>Example:</term>
1504 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
1505 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
1506 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
1507 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
1511 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1519 <sect4><title>toggle</title>
1523 <term>Specifies:</term>
1526 Initial state of "toggle" status
1531 <term>Type of value:</term>
1537 <term>Default value:</term>
1543 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1546 Act as if toggled on
1554 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
1555 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
1556 proxy. See <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal>
1557 below. This is not really useful anymore, since toggling is much easier
1558 via <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web
1559 interface</ulink> then via editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
1562 The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
1563 if this option is present.
1571 <sect4><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
1574 <term>Specifies:</term>
1577 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
1578 feature</ulink> may be used
1583 <term>Type of value:</term>
1589 <term>Default value:</term>
1595 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1598 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
1606 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
1607 content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
1611 For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1612 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1613 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1614 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1615 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
1616 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1619 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1620 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1628 <sect4><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
1631 <term>Specifies:</term>
1634 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">web-based actions
1635 file editor</ulink> may be used
1640 <term>Type of value:</term>
1646 <term>Default value:</term>
1652 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1655 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
1663 For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1664 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1665 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1666 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1667 modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
1668 recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1671 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1672 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1679 <sect4><title>ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
1682 <term>Specifies:</term>
1685 Who can access what.
1690 <term>Type of value:</term>
1693 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
1694 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
1697 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
1698 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
1699 DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
1700 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
1701 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
1702 destination part are optional.
1707 <term>Default value:</term>
1709 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1713 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1716 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
1724 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
1725 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
1726 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
1727 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost or internal (home)
1728 network address by means of the <literal>listen-address</literal> option.
1731 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
1732 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
1736 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
1737 If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
1738 talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
1739 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
1740 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
1743 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
1744 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
1745 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
1746 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1747 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
1748 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1751 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
1752 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
1753 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
1754 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
1757 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
1758 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
1763 <term>Examples:</term>
1766 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1767 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
1768 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
1769 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1773 permit-access localhost
1777 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
1778 nothing but www.example.com:
1782 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1786 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
1787 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
1791 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1792 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1800 <sect4><title>buffer-limit</title>
1804 <term>Specifies:</term>
1807 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
1812 <term>Type of value:</term>
1814 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
1818 <term>Default value:</term>
1824 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1827 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
1835 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
1836 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
1837 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
1838 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
1839 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
1843 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
1844 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
1845 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
1846 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
1847 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
1857 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1860 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1862 <sect3 id="forwarding">
1863 <title>Forwarding</title>
1866 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
1868 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
1869 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
1870 through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
1871 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
1872 Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
1873 proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
1874 runs on has no direct Internet access.
1878 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
1879 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
1882 <sect4><title>forward</title>
1885 <term>Specifies:</term>
1888 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
1893 <term>Type of value:</term>
1896 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1897 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1900 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
1901 chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
1902 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
1903 as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
1904 <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
1905 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
1906 values from 1 to 64535
1911 <term>Default value:</term>
1913 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1917 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1920 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
1928 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
1929 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
1932 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
1937 <term>Examples:</term>
1940 Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
1944 forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
1949 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
1950 to that ISP's sites:
1954 forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
1955 forward .example-isp.net .
1963 <sect4><title>forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
1966 <term>Specifies:</term>
1969 Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
1974 <term>Type of value:</term>
1977 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1978 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1979 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
1982 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
1983 chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
1984 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
1985 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
1986 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
1987 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
1992 <term>Default value:</term>
1994 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1998 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2001 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2009 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2012 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2013 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2014 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2017 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2018 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2024 <term>Examples:</term>
2027 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2028 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2029 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2034 forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
2035 forward .example.com .
2039 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2043 forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2051 <sect4><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2054 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2055 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2056 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2057 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2061 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2062 isp-b.net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2063 configuration can look like this:
2073 forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
2084 forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
2089 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2090 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2091 on both isp-a or isp-b.
2095 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2096 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
2097 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2101 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2102 run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
2107 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2108 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2110 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2113 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2114 always_direct allow ftp
2116 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2117 never_direct allow all
2122 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2123 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2130 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2133 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2136 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
2138 Removed references to Win32. HB 09/23/01
2141 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
2142 Windows GUI interface:
2146 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
2147 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
2148 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
2155 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
2162 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2163 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
2171 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
2178 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
2179 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
2180 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
2184 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
2185 eat up all your memory!
2192 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
2199 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
2200 in the log buffer. See above.
2207 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
2214 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2215 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
2216 messages with a bold-faced font:
2223 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
2230 The font used in the console window:
2237 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
2244 Font size used in the console window:
2251 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
2258 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
2259 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
2267 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
2274 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
2275 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
2276 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
2283 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
2290 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
2291 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
2292 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
2309 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2312 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2313 <sect2 id="actionsfile">
2314 <title>The Actions File</title>
2317 The actions file (<filename>default.action</filename>, formerly:
2318 <filename>actionsfile</filename> or <filename>ijb.action</filename>) is used
2319 to define what actions <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which
2320 URLs, and thus determines how ad images, cookies and various other aspects
2321 of HTTP content and transactions are handled on which sites (or even parts
2326 Anything you want can blocked, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious
2327 URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or
2328 accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk),
2329 content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking fooled, and much more.
2330 See below for a complete list of available actions.
2333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2335 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2337 Note that some actions like cookie suppression or script disabling may
2338 render some sites unusable, which rely on these techniques to work properly.
2339 Finding the right mix of actions is not easy and a matter of personal
2340 taste. In general, it can be said that the more <quote>aggressive</quote>
2341 your default settings (in the top section of the actions file) are,
2342 the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you will have to
2343 make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per default, you'll
2344 have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you regularly use
2345 and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe your bank,
2346 favorite shop, or newspaper.
2350 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2351 distribution actions file. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2352 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2353 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter).
2357 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2359 <title>How to Edit</title>
2361 The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
2362 using our browser-based editor, which is available at <ulink
2363 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>.
2367 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2368 <filename>default.action</filename> file.
2374 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
2376 The actions file is divided into sections. There are special sections,
2377 like the alias sections which will be discussed later. For now let's
2378 concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
2379 up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
2380 separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
2381 is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
2385 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2386 compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
2387 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
2388 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
2389 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins.
2393 You can trace this process by visiting <ulink
2394 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2398 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2399 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
2403 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2405 <title>Patterns</title>
2407 Generally, a pattern has the form <domain>/<path>, where both the
2408 <domain> and <path> part are optional. If you only specify a
2409 domain part, the <quote>/</quote> can be left out:
2414 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2417 is a domain only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2418 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
2423 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2426 means exactly the same.
2431 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2434 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2435 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2440 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
2443 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2444 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
2449 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2452 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2453 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
2459 <sect4><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2462 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2463 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2469 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2472 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
2473 <literal>.example.com</literal>
2478 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2481 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2482 <literal>www.</literal>
2487 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2490 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
2491 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
2498 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2499 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
2500 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
2501 any single character, you can define character classes in square
2502 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
2507 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2510 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2511 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2516 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2519 matches all of the above, and then some.
2524 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2527 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2528 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2533 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2536 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2537 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2538 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2539 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2547 <sect4><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2550 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
2551 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2556 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2557 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2558 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2559 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2560 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2561 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
2565 Note that the pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2566 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote>.
2570 Please also note that matching in the path is case
2571 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
2572 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2573 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
2574 <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
2575 documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2576 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2582 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2586 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2589 <title>Actions</title>
2591 Actions are enabled if preceded with a <quote>+</quote>, and disabled if
2592 preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. Actions are invoked by enclosing the
2593 action name in curly braces (e.g. {+some_action}), followed by a list of
2594 URLs to which the action applies. There are three classes of actions:
2602 Boolean (e.g. <quote>+/-block</quote>):
2608 <emphasis>{+name}</emphasis> # enable this action
2609 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action
2619 parameterized (e.g. <quote>+/-hide-user-agent</quote>):
2625 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and set parameter to <quote>param</quote>
2626 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable action
2635 Multi-value (e.g. <quote>{+/-add-header{Name: value}}</quote>, <quote>{+/-wafer{name=value}}</quote>):
2641 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and add parameter <quote>param</quote>
2642 <emphasis>{-name{param}}</emphasis> # remove the parameter <quote>param</quote>
2643 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action totally
2654 If nothing is specified in this file, no <quote>actions</quote> are taken.
2655 So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2656 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically
2657 enable the privacy and blocking features you need (although the
2658 provided default <filename>default.action</filename> file will
2659 give a good starting point).
2663 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2664 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file. For
2665 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are
2670 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>actions</quote> are:
2678 Add the specified HTTP header, which is not checked for validity.
2679 You may specify this many times to specify many different headers:
2685 <emphasis>+add-header{Name: value}</emphasis>
2695 Block this URL totally. In a default installation, a <quote>blocked</quote>
2696 URL will result in bright red banner that says <quote>BLOCKED</quote>,
2697 with a reason why it is being blocked, and an option to see it anyway.
2698 The page displayed for this is the <quote>blocked</quote> template
2705 <emphasis>+block</emphasis>
2715 De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
2716 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2717 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2718 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last frame
2719 of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for most
2720 banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire last
2721 frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2727 <emphasis>+deanimate-gifs{last}</emphasis>
2728 <emphasis>+deanimate-gifs{first}</emphasis>
2737 <quote>+downgrade</quote> will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to
2738 HTTP/1.0 and downgrade the responses as well. Use this action for servers
2739 that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that
2740 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1
2741 is only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests.
2747 <emphasis>+downgrade</emphasis>
2756 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2757 will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
2758 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs resulting
2759 from this scheme typically look like:
2760 <emphasis>http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else</emphasis>.
2763 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2764 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2765 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go to.
2766 Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your browser
2767 ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds the
2771 The <quote>+fast-redirects</quote> option enables interception of these
2772 types of requests by <application>Privoxy</application>, who will cut off
2773 all but the last valid URL in the request and send a local redirect back to
2774 your browser without contacting the intermediate site(s).
2780 <emphasis>+fast-redirects</emphasis>
2789 Apply the filters in the <literal>section_header</literal>
2790 section of the <filename>default.filter</filename> file to the site(s).
2791 <filename>default.filter</filename> sections are grouped according to like
2792 functionality. <application>Filters</application> can be used to
2793 re-write any of the raw page content. This is a potentially a
2794 very powerful feature!
2801 <emphasis>+filter{section_header}</emphasis>
2808 Filter sections that are pre-defined in the supplied
2809 <filename>default.filter</filename> include:
2815 <emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
2820 <emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
2825 <emphasis>no-popups</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
2830 <emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis>: Give frames a border
2835 <emphasis>webbugs</emphasis>: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
2840 <emphasis>no-refresh</emphasis>: Automatic refresh sucks on auto-dialup lines
2845 <emphasis>fun</emphasis>: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
2850 <emphasis>nimda</emphasis>: Remove (virus) Nimda code.
2855 <emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis>: Kill banners by size
2860 <emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis>: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
2866 Note: Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to slow down
2867 page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has passed
2868 the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way since
2869 the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more noticeable
2870 on slower connections.
2877 Block any existing X-Forwarded-for header, and do not add a new one:
2883 <emphasis>+hide-forwarded</emphasis>
2892 If the browser sends a <quote>From:</quote> header containing your e-mail
2893 address, this either completely removes the header (<quote>block</quote>), or
2894 changes it to the specified e-mail address.
2900 <emphasis>+hide-from{block}</emphasis>
2901 <emphasis>+hide-from{spam@sittingduck.xqq}</emphasis>
2910 Don't send the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) header to the web site. You
2911 can block it, forge a URL to the same server as the request (which is
2912 preferred because some sites will not send images otherwise) or set it to a
2913 constant, user defined string of your choice.
2919 <emphasis>+hide-referer{block}</emphasis>
2920 <emphasis>+hide-referer{forge}</emphasis>
2921 <emphasis>+hide-referer{http://nowhere.com}</emphasis>
2930 Alternative spelling of <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. It has the same
2931 parameters, and can be freely mixed with, <quote>+hide-referer</quote>.
2932 (<quote>referrer</quote> is the correct English spelling, however the HTTP
2933 specification has a bug - it requires it to be spelled <quote>referer</quote>.)
2939 <emphasis>+hide-referrer{...}</emphasis>
2948 Change the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> header so web servers can't tell your
2949 browser type. Warning! This breaks many web sites. Specify the
2950 user-agent value you want. Example, pretend to be using Netscape on
2957 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla (X11; I; Linux 2.0.32 i586)}</emphasis>
2964 Or to identify yourself explicitly as a <application>Privoxy</application> user:
2970 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{Privoxy/1.0}</emphasis>
2975 (Don't change the version number from 1.0 - after all, why tell them?)
2982 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{browser-type}</emphasis>
2992 Treat this URL as an image. This only matters if it's also <quote>+block</quote>ed,
2993 in which case a <quote>blocked</quote> image can be sent rather than a HTML page.
2994 See <quote>+image-blocker{}</quote> below for the control over what is actually sent.
2995 If you want <emphasis>invisible</emphasis> ads, they should be defined as
2996 <emphasis>images</emphasis> and <emphasis>blocked</emphasis>. And also,
2997 <quote>image-blocker</quote> should be set to <quote>blank</quote>. Note you
2998 cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, frames
2999 require an HTML page to display. So a frame that is an ad, cannot be
3000 treated as an image. Forcing an <quote>image</quote> in this
3001 situation just will not work.
3007 <emphasis>+image</emphasis>
3015 <para> Decides what to do with URLs that end up tagged with <quote>{+block
3016 +image}</quote>, e.g an advertisement. There are four options.
3017 <quote>-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML <quote>blocked</quote> page,
3018 usually resulting in a <quote>broken image</quote> icon.
3019 <!-- <quote>+image-blocker{logo}</quote> will send a -->
3020 <!-- <application>Privoxy</application> logo -->
3022 <quote>+image-blocker{blank}</quote> will send a 1x1 transparent GIF
3023 image. And finally, <quote>+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}</quote> will send a
3024 HTTP temporary redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the
3025 icon being being cached by the browser, which will speed up the display.
3026 <quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a checkerboard type pattern:
3028 <!-- which scales better than the logo (which can get blocky if the browser -->
3029 <!-- enlarges it too much). -->
3035 <!-- <emphasis>+image-blocker{logo}</emphasis> -->
3036 <emphasis>+image-blocker{blank}</emphasis>
3037 <emphasis>+image-blocker{pattern}</emphasis>
3038 <emphasis>+image-blocker{http://p.p/send-banner}</emphasis>
3047 By default (i.e. in the absence of a <quote>+limit-connect</quote>
3048 action), <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow CONNECT
3049 requests to port 443, which is the standard port for https as a
3054 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3055 (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy
3056 connects to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits
3057 its connections to the client <emphasis>and</emphasis> to the remote proxy.
3058 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can
3059 be abused as TCP relays very easily.
3063 If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
3064 CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
3065 port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
3073 <emphasis>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need no be specified.</emphasis>
3074 <emphasis>+limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.</emphasis>
3075 <emphasis>+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100</emphasis>
3076 <emphasis> #and above 500 are OK.</emphasis>
3086 <quote>+no-compression</quote> prevents the website from compressing the
3087 data. Some websites do this, which can be a problem for
3088 <application>Privoxy</application>, since <quote>+filter</quote>,
3089 <quote>+no-popup</quote> and <quote>+gif-deanimate</quote> will not work on
3090 compressed data. This will slow down connections to those websites,
3091 though. Default is <quote>no-compression</quote> is turned on.
3098 <emphasis>+nocompression</emphasis>
3107 If the website sets cookies, <quote>no-cookies-keep</quote> will make sure
3108 they are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
3109 profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3110 that you can log in for transactions. Default: on.
3116 <emphasis>+no-cookies-keep</emphasis>
3125 Prevent the website from reading cookies:
3131 <emphasis>+no-cookies-read</emphasis>
3140 Prevent the website from setting cookies:
3146 <emphasis>+no-cookies-set</emphasis>
3155 Filter the website through a built-in filter to disable those obnoxious
3156 JavaScript pop-up windows via window.open(), etc. The two alternative
3157 spellings are equivalent.
3163 <emphasis>+no-popup</emphasis>
3164 <emphasis>+no-popups</emphasis>
3173 This action only applies if you are using a <filename>jarfile</filename>
3174 for saving cookies. It sends a cookie to every site stating that you do not
3175 accept any copyright on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track
3176 you. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header they could use to
3183 <emphasis>+vanilla-wafer</emphasis>
3192 This allows you to add an arbitrary cookie. It can be specified multiple
3193 times in order to add as many cookies as you like.
3199 <emphasis>+wafer{name=value}</emphasis>
3210 The meaning of any of the above is reversed by preceding the action with a
3211 <quote>-</quote>, in place of the <quote>+</quote>.
3219 Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified sites:
3226 # Turn off all persistent cookies
3227 { +no-cookies-read }
3229 # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
3230 { +no-cookies-keep }
3232 # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
3233 { -no-cookies-read }
3235 { -no-cookies-keep }
3242 # Alternative way of saying the same thing
3243 {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
3252 Now turn off <quote>fast redirects</quote>, and then we allow two exceptions:
3262 # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
3264 www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
3272 Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections
3273 of <filename>default.filter</filename>, and make one exception for
3281 # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
3282 # specified sections:
3283 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
3284 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
3286 # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
3288 .cvs.sourceforge.net
3295 Now some URLs that we want <quote>blocked</quote> (normally generates
3296 the <quote>blocked</quote> banner). Many of these use regular expressions
3297 that will expand to match multiple URLs:
3306 /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
3307 /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
3308 /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
3309 /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
3310 /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
3311 /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
3313 /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
3314 /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
3318 /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
3322 /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
3323 /.*/images/addver\.gif
3324 /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
3328 /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
3329 /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
3336 /graphics/defaultAd/
3338 /image\.ng/transactionID
3339 /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
3340 /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
3344 /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
3345 /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
3347 /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
3355 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
3356 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
3357 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
3358 content he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules
3359 for all sites. See the <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link>
3360 for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
3365 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3368 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3370 <title>Aliases</title>
3372 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
3373 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other <quote>actions</quote>.
3374 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in <quote>actions</quote>.
3375 Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, <quote>=</quote>,
3376 <quote>{</quote> or <quote>}</quote>. But please use only <quote>a</quote>-
3377 <quote>z</quote>, <quote>0</quote>-<quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and
3378 <quote>-</quote>. Alias names are not case sensitive, and
3379 <emphasis>must be defined before anything</emphasis> else in the
3380 <filename>default.action</filename>file! And there can only be one set of
3381 <quote>aliases</quote> defined.
3385 Now let's define a few aliases:
3392 # Useful custom aliases we can use later. These must come first!
3394 +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
3395 -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
3396 fragile = -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -no-popups
3397 shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
3398 +imageblock = +block +image
3400 #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
3403 c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
3404 c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
3405 #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
3412 Some examples using our <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote>
3420 # These sites are very complex and require
3421 # minimal interference.
3423 .office.microsoft.com
3424 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
3427 # Shopping sites - still want to block ads.
3430 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3434 # These shops require pop-ups
3444 The <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> aliases are often used for
3445 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require most actions to be disabled
3446 in order to function properly.
3453 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3456 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3457 <sect2 id="filterfile">
3458 <title>The Filter File</title>
3460 Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
3461 modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
3462 including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
3463 <filename>default.filter</filename>, located in the config directory.
3467 This is potentially a very powerful feature, and requires knowledge of both
3468 <quote>regular expression</quote> and HTML in order create custom
3469 filters. But, there are a number of useful filters included with
3470 <application>Privoxy</application> for many common situations.
3474 The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins
3475 with the <literal>FILTER</literal> keyword, followed by the identifier
3476 for that section, e.g. <quote>FILTER: webbugs</quote>. Each section performs
3477 a similar type of filtering, such as <quote>html-annoyances</quote>.
3481 This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the
3482 target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some
3483 examples from the included default <filename>default.filter</filename>:
3487 Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
3488 deleting such references:
3495 FILTER: html-annoyances
3497 # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
3500 s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
3501 s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
3502 s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
3503 s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
3505 # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
3507 s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
3511 #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
3512 #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
3519 Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of <quote>Microsoft</quote> with
3520 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>, and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
3529 s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
3533 s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></font>/ig
3540 Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
3547 # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
3550 s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
3558 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3562 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3565 <title>Templates</title>
3567 When <application>Privoxy</application> displays one of its internal
3568 pages, such as a 404 Not Found error page, it uses the appropriate template.
3569 On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these are located in
3570 <filename>/etc/privoxy/templates</filename> by default. These may be
3571 customized, if desired. <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> is
3572 used to control the HTML attributes (fonts, etc).
3575 The default <quote>Blocked</quote> banner page with the bright red top
3576 banner, is called just <quote><filename>blocked</filename></quote>. This
3577 may be customized or replaced with something else if desired.
3584 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3588 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3590 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
3593 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
3595 <!-- end boilerplate -->
3598 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3599 <sect2 id="submitactions">
3600 <title>Submitting Ads and <quote>Action</quote> Problems</title>
3602 Ads and banners that are not stopped by <application>Privoxy</application>
3603 can be submitted to the developers by accessing a special page and filling
3604 out the brief, required form. Conversely, you can also report pages, images,
3605 etc. that <application>Privoxy</application> is blocking, but should not.
3606 The form itself does require Internet access.
3609 To do this, point your browser to <application>Privoxy</application>
3610 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
3611 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>), and then select
3612 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions','Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Actions file feedback system</ulink>,
3613 near the bottom of the page. Paste in the URL that is the cause of the
3614 unwanted behavior, and follow the prompts. The developers will
3615 try to incorporate a fix for the problem you reported into future versions.
3619 New <filename>default.actions</filename> files will occasionally be made
3620 available based on your feedback. These
3621 will be announced on the
3623 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce">ijbswa-announce</ulink>
3631 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3632 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
3634 <sect2><title>Copyright</title>
3635 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
3637 <!-- end copyright -->
3640 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3643 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3645 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
3646 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
3648 <!-- end history -->
3652 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3653 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
3654 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
3656 <!-- end seealso -->
3661 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3662 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
3665 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3667 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
3669 <application>Privoxy</application> can use <quote>regular expressions</quote>
3670 in various config files. Assuming support for <quote>pcre</quote> (Perl
3671 Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the default. Such
3672 configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but they can be
3673 used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against
3678 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
3679 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
3680 introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
3684 <quote>Regular expressions</quote> is a way of matching one character
3685 expression against another to see if it matches or not. One of the
3686 <quote>expressions</quote> is a literal string of readable characters
3687 (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a complex string of literal
3688 characters combined with wild-cards, and other special characters, called
3689 meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have special meanings and
3690 are used to build the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible
3691 Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
3692 with backward compatibility.
3696 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
3697 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
3698 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
3699 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
3700 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
3701 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
3702 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
3703 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
3707 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
3708 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
3709 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
3710 and then some examples:
3715 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
3716 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
3718 </simplelist></para>
3722 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
3725 </simplelist></para>
3729 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
3732 </simplelist></para>
3736 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
3739 </simplelist></para>
3743 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
3744 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
3745 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
3746 not as a special meta-character.
3748 </simplelist></para>
3752 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
3753 any of the enclosed characters are encountered.
3755 </simplelist></para>
3759 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
3760 or multiple sub-expressions.
3762 </simplelist></para>
3766 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
3767 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
3768 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches.
3770 </simplelist></para>
3774 <emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
3775 <quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
3778 </simplelist></para>
3781 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
3782 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
3783 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
3784 be more illuminating:
3788 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
3789 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
3790 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
3791 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
3792 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
3793 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
3794 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
3795 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
3796 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
3797 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
3798 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
3799 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
3800 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
3801 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
3806 A now something a little more complex:
3810 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
3811 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
3812 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
3813 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
3814 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
3815 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
3816 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
3821 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
3822 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
3823 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
3824 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
3825 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
3826 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
3827 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
3828 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
3829 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
3830 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
3831 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
3832 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
3833 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
3834 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
3835 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
3836 changing our regular expression to:
3837 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
3842 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
3843 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
3844 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
3845 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
3846 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
3847 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
3848 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
3849 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
3850 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
3851 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
3852 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
3853 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
3854 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
3855 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
3856 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
3857 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
3858 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
3859 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
3860 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
3861 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
3862 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
3863 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
3864 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
3865 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
3866 in the expression anywhere).
3870 <emphasis><literal>s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i</literal></emphasis> - This is
3871 a substitution. <quote>MicroSuck</quote> will replace any occurrence of
3872 <quote>microsoft</quote>. The <quote>i</quote> at the end of the expression
3873 means ignore case. The <quote>(?!.com)</quote> means
3874 the match should fail if <quote>microsoft</quote> is followed by
3875 <quote>.com</quote>. In other words, this acts like a <quote>NOT</quote>
3876 modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
3880 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
3881 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
3882 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
3883 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
3884 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
3889 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
3890 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
3895 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3898 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3900 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
3903 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
3904 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
3905 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
3906 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
3907 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
3908 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
3909 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
3915 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
3916 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
3917 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
3918 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
3931 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
3935 Alternately, this may be reached at <ulink
3936 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, but this
3937 variation may not work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
3943 Show information about the current configuration:
3947 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
3954 Show the source code version numbers:
3958 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
3965 Show the client's request headers:
3969 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
3976 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
3980 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
3987 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
3988 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
3992 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
3996 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
4000 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
4005 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
4012 Edit the actions list file:
4016 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>
4025 These may be bookmarked for quick reference.
4029 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
4030 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
4032 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
4033 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
4034 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
4035 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
4036 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
4037 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
4040 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
4041 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
4042 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
4043 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
4044 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
4045 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
4053 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Enable Privoxy</ulink>
4059 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Disable Privoxy</ulink>
4065 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
4071 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">View Privoxy Status</ulink>
4077 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions','Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Actions file feedback system</ulink>
4087 Credit: The site which gave me the general idea for these bookmarklets is
4088 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
4089 have more information about bookmarklets.
4098 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4099 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
4100 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
4103 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies <quote>actions</quote>
4104 and <quote>filters</quote> to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
4105 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
4106 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
4107 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
4108 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
4109 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
4110 <quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
4111 so obvious. <application>Privoxy</application> provides the
4112 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
4113 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
4114 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
4118 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
4119 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
4120 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
4121 help with filtering effects from the <filename>default.filter</filename> file! It
4122 also will not tell you about any other URLs that may be embedded within the
4123 URL you are testing (i.e. a web page). For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs
4124 within the raw page source of HTML pages. So you will only get info for the
4125 actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area -- not any sub-URLs. If you
4126 want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you will have to dig those out of
4127 the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View Page Source</quote> option
4128 for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the URL.
4132 Let's look at an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
4133 one section at a time:
4138 System default actions:
4140 { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
4141 -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
4142 -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
4143 -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
4149 This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in defaults. This
4150 is basically what <application>Privoxy</application> would do if there
4151 were not any <quote>actions</quote> defined, i.e. it does nothing. Every action
4152 is disabled. This is not particularly informative for our purposes here. OK,
4159 Matches for http://google.com:
4161 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
4162 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
4163 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
4164 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
4165 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
4166 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
4167 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
4170 { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
4180 This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our
4181 <quote>actions</quote>, and which ones match for our example,
4182 <quote>google.com</quote>. The first grouping shows our default
4183 settings, which would apply to all URLs. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote>
4184 file, this would be the section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section
4185 near the top. This applies to all URLs as signified by the single forward
4186 slash -- <quote>/</quote>.
4191 These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
4192 actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list
4193 specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins.
4194 Just below this then are two explicit matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
4195 The first is negating our various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow
4196 cookies here). The second is allowing <quote>fast-redirects</quote>. Note
4197 that there is a leading dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will
4198 match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
4199 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these actions defined
4200 somewhere in the lower part of our actions file, and
4201 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced in these sections.
4206 And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
4207 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
4208 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
4217 -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
4218 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
4219 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
4220 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
4221 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
4222 -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
4229 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
4248 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
4249 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +image</quote>,
4250 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
4251 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<quote>Aliases</quote> are defined in the
4252 first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
4257 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
4258 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
4259 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
4260 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
4261 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
4262 is done here -- as both a <quote>+block</quote> <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
4263 <quote>+image</quote>. The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> does this
4268 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
4269 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
4275 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
4277 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
4278 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
4279 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
4280 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
4281 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
4282 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
4283 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
4293 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
4294 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
4295 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
4296 block (-block) pages with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are various ways to
4297 handle such exceptions. Example:
4310 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
4311 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
4315 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
4329 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
4330 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
4331 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
4332 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
4333 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
4334 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
4342 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4351 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
4352 <quote>{ -filter -no-cookies -no-cookies-keep }</quote>. Or you could do
4353 your own exception to negate filtering:
4367 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
4368 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
4369 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
4370 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
4379 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
4380 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
4381 Public License as published by the Free Software
4382 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
4383 your option) any later version.
4385 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
4386 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
4387 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
4388 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
4389 License for more details.
4391 The GNU General Public License should be included with
4392 this file. If not, you can view it at
4393 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
4394 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
4395 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
4397 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
4398 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
4401 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
4402 Proofreading, part one
4404 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
4405 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
4406 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
4408 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
4409 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
4411 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
4412 Add small section on submitting actions.
4414 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
4417 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
4418 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
4420 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
4421 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
4423 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
4426 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
4427 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
4428 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
4429 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
4430 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
4432 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
4433 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
4435 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
4436 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
4438 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
4439 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
4440 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
4441 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
4442 eventually be set by Makefile.
4443 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
4445 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
4446 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
4448 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
4449 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
4451 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
4452 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
4454 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
4455 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
4456 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
4457 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
4459 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
4462 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
4463 Added more to Anatomy section.
4465 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
4466 Touch up intro for new name.
4468 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
4469 we have a new homepage!
4471 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
4472 A few minor catch ups with name change.
4474 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
4475 configure needs to be generated.
4477 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
4478 we are too lazy to make a block-built
4479 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
4481 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
4482 name change related issue.
4484 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
4485 name change. changed filenames.
4487 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
4490 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
4491 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
4492 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
4493 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
4494 comments and remarks to history untouched.
4496 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
4499 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
4500 New section in Appendix.
4502 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
4503 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
4505 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
4506 correct feedback channels
4508 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
4509 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
4511 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
4514 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
4515 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
4517 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
4518 Added imageblock{pattern}.
4520 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
4523 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
4524 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
4526 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
4527 provide correct feedback channels
4529 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
4530 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
4532 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
4533 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
4535 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
4536 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
4538 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
4539 Add new - - user option.
4541 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
4542 Added section on command line options.
4544 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
4545 Changed default port to 8118
4547 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
4548 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
4550 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
4551 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
4552 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
4555 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
4558 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
4559 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
4561 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
4562 Update OS/2 build section
4564 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
4565 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
4566 will work - no other changes are needed.
4568 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
4569 Added a very short section on Templates
4571 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
4572 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
4574 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
4575 Touch ups for *.action files.
4577 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
4580 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
4581 Updates for recent changes.
4583 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
4584 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
4586 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
4587 Correct 2 minor errors
4589 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
4590 *** empty log message ***
4592 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
4593 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
4595 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
4596 wrong url in documentation
4598 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
4599 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
4601 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
4604 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
4607 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
4610 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
4611 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
4613 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
4614 Some additions, and re-arranging.
4616 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
4619 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
4620 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
4622 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
4625 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
4626 source files for junkbuster documentation
4628 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
4629 first proposal of a structure.
4631 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
4632 docs should have an author.
4634 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
4635 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob