1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.3">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
29 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
32 This file belongs into
33 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
35 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt Exp $
37 Copyright (C) 2001- 2003 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
40 ========================================================================
41 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
42 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
43 ========================================================================
50 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
54 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
55 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
56 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001 - 2004 by
57 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
61 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt Exp $</pubdate>
65 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
66 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
67 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
68 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
81 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
82 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
83 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
89 The <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
90 install, configure and use <ulink
91 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
94 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
96 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
99 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
100 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
101 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
102 contact the developers.
106 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
112 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
113 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
115 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
116 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
117 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
118 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
119 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
120 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
121 earlier versions. The target release date for
122 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
139 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
140 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
141 some of them currently under development]]>:
143 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
145 <!-- end boilerplate -->
150 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
153 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
154 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
157 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
158 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
159 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
160 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
165 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
166 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
167 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
168 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
169 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
170 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
171 upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
181 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs</title>
184 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
185 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
186 of configuration files.
190 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
191 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
192 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
193 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
194 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
198 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
199 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
200 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
204 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
205 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
206 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
207 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
211 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
212 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
214 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
215 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
220 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
221 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
224 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
225 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
226 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in.
230 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
231 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
234 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
235 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
236 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
240 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
241 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
244 First, make sure that no previous installations of
245 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
246 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
247 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
248 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
254 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
255 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
256 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
257 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
261 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
262 into will contain all of the configuration files.
266 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
267 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
269 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
270 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
271 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
272 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
273 and follow the installation process.
274 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
275 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
276 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
277 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
278 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
281 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
282 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
283 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
284 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
288 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
292 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
296 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
297 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
299 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
300 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
301 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
302 remove this directory.
306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
307 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
309 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
310 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
311 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
312 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
315 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
316 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
317 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
321 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
322 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
323 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
329 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
330 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
333 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
334 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
339 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
340 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
341 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
342 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
343 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
347 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
349 <!-- end boilerplate -->
352 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
353 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
355 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
356 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
357 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
358 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
363 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
364 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
365 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
366 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
370 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
371 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
372 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> for your
373 customization of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
374 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
382 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
384 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
385 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
386 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
388 There are very significant changes from earlier
389 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
390 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
391 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
392 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
393 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
394 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
395 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
396 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
397 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
398 files</quote></link>.
399 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
400 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
403 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
404 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
405 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
406 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
409 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
410 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
411 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
412 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
413 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
414 recommended to use the new configuration files.
417 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
425 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
431 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
432 important configuration files!
437 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
438 at the special URL: <ulink
439 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
440 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
441 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
442 <application>Privoxy</application>.
447 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
448 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
449 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
450 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
451 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
452 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
457 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
458 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
459 Some installers may not automatically start
460 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
468 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
469 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
475 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
476 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
482 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
483 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
490 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
491 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
492 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
493 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
500 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
501 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
502 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
508 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
509 HTTPS (SSL) proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
510 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
511 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
512 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
513 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
514 for more details on this.
520 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
521 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage cookies, you should
522 remove any currently stored cookies too.
528 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
529 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
530 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
531 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
534 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
535 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
536 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
537 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
538 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
545 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
546 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
547 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
548 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
549 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
550 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
551 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
552 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
553 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
554 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
560 For easy access to Privoxy's most important controls, drag the provided
561 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
568 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
569 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
576 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
584 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
586 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
587 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
589 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
590 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
593 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
594 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
595 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
598 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
599 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
600 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
603 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
604 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
605 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
606 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
607 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
608 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
609 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
610 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
611 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
612 habits and preferences.
615 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
616 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
617 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
618 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
619 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
620 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
621 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
622 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
623 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
624 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
627 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
628 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
629 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
630 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
631 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
634 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
635 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
636 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
637 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
638 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
639 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
640 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
641 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
642 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
647 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <literal><link
648 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
649 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>, and
650 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
658 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this action stops
659 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
660 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
661 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
662 communication with the remote server and sends <application>Privoxy</application>'s
663 own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened.
669 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
670 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
671 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
672 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
673 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
674 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
675 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
676 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
677 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
678 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
679 an entire HTML page in most situations.
686 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
687 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
688 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
689 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
690 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
691 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
694 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
698 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
699 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
704 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
705 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
710 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
711 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
720 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
721 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
722 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
723 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
724 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
725 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
726 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
727 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
728 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
729 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
730 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
731 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
735 A quick and simple step by step example:
743 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
744 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
752 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
757 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
758 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
761 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
763 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
766 <imagedata fileref="../images/files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
769 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
778 You should have a section with only
779 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
780 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
781 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
782 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
783 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
784 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
785 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
786 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
792 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
793 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
794 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
795 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
796 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
797 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
802 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
803 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
811 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
812 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
813 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
814 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
819 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
820 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
821 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
828 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
831 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
833 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
835 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
836 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
837 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
838 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
839 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
842 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
843 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
846 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
848 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration (Mozilla)</title>
851 <imagedata fileref="../images/proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
854 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
861 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
862 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
866 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
867 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
868 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton>
870 <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton>
872 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton>
874 <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton>
876 <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
880 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>:
884 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
885 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
886 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton>
888 <guibutton>Internet Properties</guibutton>
890 <guibutton>Connections</guibutton>
892 <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
896 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
897 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
902 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
903 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
904 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
905 <application>Privoxy</application>!
909 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
910 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
911 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
912 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
913 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
916 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
917 <title>Red Hat and Conectiva</title>
919 We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
920 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as
921 its main configuration file.
925 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
930 <sect2 id="start-debian">
931 <title>Debian</title>
933 We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per
934 default. It will use the file
935 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
940 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
945 <sect2 id="start-suse">
948 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
949 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
959 <sect2 id="start-windows">
960 <title>Windows</title>
962 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
963 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
964 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
965 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
969 <sect2 id="start-unices">
970 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
972 Example Unix startup command:
976 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
981 <sect2 id="start-os2">
984 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
985 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
986 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
987 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
991 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
992 <title>Mac OSX</title>
994 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
995 start automatically when the system restarts. To start Privoxy by hand,
996 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
997 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
1002 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
1006 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1011 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1012 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1014 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1015 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1016 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1017 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1018 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1019 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1020 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1024 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1025 <title>Gentoo</title>
1027 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1028 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1032 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1036 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1037 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1042 rc-update add privoxy default
1050 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1054 must find a better place for this paragraph
1057 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1058 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1059 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1060 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1061 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1062 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1066 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1067 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1068 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1069 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1070 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1071 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1072 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1073 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1074 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1078 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1079 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1080 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1082 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1083 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1084 popups (explained below).
1088 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
1089 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
1090 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1091 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1092 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1093 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1094 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1095 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1096 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1100 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1101 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1102 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1103 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1104 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1105 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1106 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1107 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1108 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1112 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1113 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1114 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1115 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1116 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1117 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1118 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1122 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1123 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1124 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1125 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1126 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1127 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1132 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1133 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1134 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1139 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1140 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1141 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1142 Developers</quote></link> below.
1147 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1148 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1149 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1151 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1152 command-line options:
1160 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1163 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1168 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1171 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1176 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1179 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1180 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1185 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1189 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1190 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1191 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1192 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1197 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1201 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1202 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1203 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1208 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1212 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1213 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the Privoxy
1214 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1215 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in Privoxy to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1221 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1224 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1225 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1226 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1227 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1228 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1229 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1240 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1244 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
1246 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1247 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1248 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1249 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1253 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1256 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
1258 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1259 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1260 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1261 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1262 You will see the following section:
1266 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1269 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1273 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1276 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1279 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1282 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1285 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1288 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1296 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1297 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1298 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1299 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1300 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1301 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1305 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1306 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1307 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1308 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1309 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1310 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1311 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1312 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1318 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1325 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1326 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1328 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1329 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1330 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1331 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1332 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1333 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1337 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1338 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1339 principle configuration files are:
1347 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1348 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1349 on Windows. This is a required file.
1355 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1356 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1357 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1358 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1359 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1360 as many websites as possible.
1363 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1364 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1365 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1366 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1367 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1368 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1369 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1370 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1373 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1375 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1377 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1378 various actions files.
1384 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1385 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1386 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1387 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1388 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files. Only one filter
1389 file may be defined.
1397 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1398 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1399 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1400 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1401 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1402 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1407 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1408 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1409 maximum flexibility.
1413 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1414 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1415 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1416 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1417 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1418 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1419 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1424 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1425 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1426 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1427 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1433 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1436 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1438 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1439 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1440 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1442 <!-- end include -->
1445 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1449 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1451 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1454 The actions files are used to define what actions
1455 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
1456 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1457 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
1458 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application>
1459 with differing purposes:
1466 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1467 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1468 provide a base level of functionality for
1469 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1470 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
1471 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1472 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1477 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1478 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1479 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1480 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1485 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
1486 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1487 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
1488 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
1489 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
1493 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1494 <filename>standard.action</filename> are:
1497 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1498 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1499 <colspec colname=c1>
1500 <colspec colname=c2>
1501 <colspec colname=c3>
1502 <colspec colname=c4>
1505 <entry>Feature</entry>
1506 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1507 <entry>Medium</entry>
1508 <entry>Adventuresome</entry>
1513 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1514 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1515 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1516 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1522 <entry>Ad-blocking by URL</entry>
1529 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1536 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1543 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1550 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1552 <entry>session-only</entry>
1557 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1558 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1559 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1564 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1571 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1578 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1585 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1592 <entry>Fun text replacements</entry>
1599 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1606 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1613 <entry>Demoronizer</entry>
1630 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1631 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1632 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically process before
1633 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1635 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1639 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1640 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1641 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1642 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1643 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1644 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1645 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1646 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1647 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1648 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1649 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1650 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1654 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1655 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1656 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1657 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1658 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1662 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1664 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1666 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1667 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1668 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1669 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
1670 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1671 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1672 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1673 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1674 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful puposes, like maybe
1675 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1679 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1680 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1681 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1682 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1686 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1688 <title>How to Edit</title>
1690 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1691 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1692 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1693 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
1694 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
1695 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Adventuresome</quote>.
1696 Warning: the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> setting is not only more aggressive,
1697 but includes settings that are fun and subversive, and which some may find of
1702 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1703 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
1709 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1710 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
1712 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1713 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1714 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1715 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1716 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1717 Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
1721 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1722 compared to all patterns in each <quote>action file</quote> file. Every time it matches, the list of
1723 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
1724 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
1725 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
1726 the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
1727 a heading line of <literal>{
1728 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
1729 then later another one with just <literal>{
1730 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
1731 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply.
1735 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
1736 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1740 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1741 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
1745 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1746 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1747 <title>Patterns</title>
1749 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
1750 to determine what actions might apply to which sites and pages your browser
1751 attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild card type
1752 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
1753 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
1754 against many similar patterns.
1758 Generally, a <application>Privoxy</application> pattern has the form
1759 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
1760 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
1761 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
1762 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
1763 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
1764 the pattern. This is assumed already!
1769 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
1772 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
1773 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
1778 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
1781 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
1787 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
1790 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
1791 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
1796 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
1799 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
1800 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
1805 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
1808 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
1809 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
1816 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1817 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
1820 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
1821 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
1827 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
1830 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
1831 <literal>.example.com</literal>
1836 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
1839 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
1840 <literal>www.</literal>
1845 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
1848 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
1849 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
1856 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
1857 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
1858 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
1859 any single character, you can define character classes in square
1860 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
1865 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1868 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
1869 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
1874 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1877 matches all of the above, and then some.
1882 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
1885 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
1886 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
1891 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
1894 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
1895 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
1896 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
1897 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
1905 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1908 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1909 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
1912 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
1913 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
1918 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
1919 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
1920 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
1921 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
1922 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
1923 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
1927 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
1928 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
1929 for the beginning of a line).
1933 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
1934 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
1935 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
1936 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
1937 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
1943 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1946 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1948 <sect2 id="actions">
1949 <title>Actions</title>
1951 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
1952 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
1953 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
1954 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
1955 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
1956 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
1957 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
1958 previously applied.</quote>
1963 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
1964 separated by whitespace, like in
1965 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
1966 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
1967 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
1968 of the actions file.
1972 There are three classes of actions:
1979 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
1980 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
1984 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
1985 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
1988 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
1995 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2000 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2001 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2002 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2005 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2006 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2009 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
2015 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2016 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2017 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2018 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2019 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2020 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2024 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2025 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2026 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2027 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2030 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2031 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2039 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2040 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2041 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
2042 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2043 files will give a good starting point).
2047 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2048 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2049 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
2050 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
2051 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
2052 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
2053 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
2054 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
2057 <!-- start actions listing -->
2059 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2063 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2064 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2065 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2067 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2070 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2072 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2073 <title>add-header</title>
2077 <term>Typical use:</term>
2079 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2084 <term>Effect:</term>
2087 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2094 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2096 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2101 <term>Parameter:</term>
2104 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2105 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2115 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2116 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2117 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2124 <term>Example usage:</term>
2127 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2136 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2137 <title>block</title>
2141 <term>Typical use:</term>
2143 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
2148 <term>Effect:</term>
2151 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
2152 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
2153 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
2154 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
2161 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2163 <para>Boolean.</para>
2168 <term>Parameter:</term>
2178 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2179 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2180 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2181 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2182 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2183 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2184 right now, you can take a look at the
2185 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2189 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2190 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2191 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2192 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2193 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2194 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2197 It is important to understand this process, in order
2198 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2199 ads and other unwanted content.
2202 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2203 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2204 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2205 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2206 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2212 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2215 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2216 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2218 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
2230 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2231 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
2232 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
2236 <term>Typical use:</term>
2238 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
2243 <term>Effect:</term>
2246 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
2253 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2255 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2260 <term>Parameter:</term>
2272 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
2273 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
2274 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
2275 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
2276 supported by the browser.
2279 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
2280 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
2281 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
2282 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
2283 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
2286 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
2287 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use Privoxy
2288 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
2289 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
2290 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
2293 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
2294 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
2295 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
2296 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
2299 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
2300 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
2301 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
2302 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
2303 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
2306 Most of the time it's easier to enable
2307 <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
2308 and replace this action with a custom regular expression. It allows you
2309 to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
2310 only replace the content types you aimed at.
2313 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
2314 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
2315 more work to get the same precision.
2321 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
2324 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
2325 {+content-type-overwrite {application/xml}}
2327 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
2328 {-content-type-overwrite}
2329 www.example.net/*.\.css$
2330 www.example.net/*.style
2339 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2340 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
2341 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
2345 <term>Typical use:</term>
2347 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
2352 <term>Effect:</term>
2355 Deletes every header send by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
2362 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2364 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2369 <term>Parameter:</term>
2381 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
2382 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
2383 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
2384 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
2387 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
2388 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
2389 they contain the same string.
2392 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
2393 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
2394 parts of them, you should enable
2395 <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
2396 and create your own filter.
2400 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
2407 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2410 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
2411 {+crunch-client-header {Privacy-Violation:}}
2421 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2422 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
2423 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
2427 <term>Typical use:</term>
2429 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
2434 <term>Effect:</term>
2437 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
2444 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2446 <para>Boolean.</para>
2451 <term>Parameter:</term>
2463 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
2464 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
2465 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
2466 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
2469 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
2473 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
2474 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
2475 isn't blocked as well.
2478 It is recommended to use this action together with
2479 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
2481 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
2487 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2490 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents without being tracked across sessions
2491 {+hide-if-modified-since {-1} \
2492 +overwrite-last-modified {randomize} \
2493 +crunch-if-none-match}
2502 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2503 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
2504 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
2508 <term>Typical use:</term>
2511 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
2517 <term>Effect:</term>
2520 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
2527 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2529 <para>Boolean.</para>
2534 <term>Parameter:</term>
2546 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
2547 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
2548 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
2549 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2552 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2553 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2554 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
2555 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
2561 <term>Example usage:</term>
2564 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
2572 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2573 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
2574 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
2578 <term>Typical use:</term>
2580 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
2585 <term>Effect:</term>
2588 Deletes every header send by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
2595 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2597 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2602 <term>Parameter:</term>
2614 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
2615 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
2616 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
2619 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
2620 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
2621 they contain the same string.
2624 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
2625 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
2626 parts of them, you should enable
2627 <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
2628 and create your own filter.
2632 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
2639 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2642 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
2643 {+crunch-server-header {no-cache}}
2652 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2653 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
2654 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
2658 <term>Typical use:</term>
2661 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
2667 <term>Effect:</term>
2670 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
2677 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2679 <para>Boolean.</para>
2684 <term>Parameter:</term>
2696 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
2697 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
2698 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
2699 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2702 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2703 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2704 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
2710 <term>Example usage:</term>
2713 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
2722 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2723 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
2724 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
2728 <term>Typical use:</term>
2730 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
2735 <term>Effect:</term>
2738 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
2745 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2747 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2752 <term>Parameter:</term>
2755 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2764 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2765 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2766 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2767 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2768 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2769 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2772 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
2773 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
2780 <term>Example usage:</term>
2783 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
2790 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2791 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
2792 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
2796 <term>Typical use:</term>
2798 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
2803 <term>Effect:</term>
2806 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
2813 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2815 <para>Boolean.</para>
2820 <term>Parameter:</term>
2832 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
2833 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
2834 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
2835 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
2836 is a chance you might need this action.
2842 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2845 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
2846 problem-host.example.com</screen>
2854 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2855 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
2856 <title>fast-redirects</title>
2860 <term>Typical use:</term>
2862 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
2867 <term>Effect:</term>
2870 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
2871 the redirection server first.
2878 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2880 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2885 <term>Parameter:</term>
2890 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
2891 to detect redirection URLs.
2896 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
2897 for redirection URLs.
2908 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2909 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
2910 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
2911 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
2912 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
2915 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2916 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2917 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
2918 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
2919 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
2923 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
2924 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
2925 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
2928 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
2929 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
2930 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
2931 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
2932 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
2933 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
2934 the user gets redirected anyway.
2937 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
2939 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
2940 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
2941 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
2942 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
2943 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
2944 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. It is possible to fix these redirected
2945 requests with <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
2946 but it requires a little effort.
2949 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
2950 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
2951 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
2952 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
2953 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
2954 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
2955 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
2961 <term>Example usage:</term>
2964 <screen>+fast-redirects{simple-check}</screen>
2967 <screen>+fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</screen>
2976 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2977 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
2978 <title>filter</title>
2982 <term>Typical use:</term>
2984 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
2989 <term>Effect:</term>
2992 All files of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which this
2993 action applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression
2994 based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
2995 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
2996 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they
3004 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3006 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3011 <term>Parameter:</term>
3014 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
3015 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
3016 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3017 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>). When used in its negative form,
3018 and without parameters, filtering is completely disabled.
3027 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
3028 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
3032 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3033 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3034 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3035 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3036 noticeable on slower connections.
3039 This is very powerful feature, but <quote>rolling your own</quote>
3040 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
3043 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
3044 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
3045 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
3046 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
3047 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
3050 Inadequate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
3051 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
3052 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
3053 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
3054 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
3055 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> sections.
3058 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
3059 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
3060 would normally be sent compressed, use the
3061 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3062 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3065 Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
3066 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3067 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
3068 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
3069 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
3073 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
3074 improved filters is particularly welcome!
3077 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
3078 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
3079 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
3080 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
3086 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
3087 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
3088 more explanation on each:</term>
3091 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3092 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
3095 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
3096 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
3099 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3100 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
3103 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3104 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
3107 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3108 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
3111 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
3112 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows</screen>
3115 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
3116 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML</screen>
3119 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
3120 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
3123 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3124 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
3127 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
3128 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
3131 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3132 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
3135 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
3136 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
3139 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
3140 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
3143 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3144 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable</screen>
3147 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
3148 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
3151 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3152 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
3155 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
3156 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable</screen>
3159 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3160 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3163 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3164 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
3167 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
3168 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
3176 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3177 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
3178 <title>force-text-mode</title>
3182 <term>Typical use:</term>
3184 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of text format.</emphasis></para>
3189 <term>Effect:</term>
3192 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
3199 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3201 <para>Boolean.</para>
3206 <term>Parameter:</term>
3218 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
3219 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
3220 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
3221 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
3222 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
3223 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
3227 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
3228 with regular expressions can cause file damages.
3235 <term>Example usage:</term>
3248 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3249 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
3250 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
3254 <term>Typical use:</term>
3256 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
3261 <term>Effect:</term>
3264 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
3265 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
3266 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
3267 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
3268 The <q>empty</q> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
3275 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3277 <para>Boolean.</para>
3282 <term>Parameter:</term>
3294 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
3295 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
3296 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
3299 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
3300 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
3301 but usually this isn't necessary.
3307 <term>Example usage:</term>
3310 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
3311 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
3312 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
3322 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3323 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
3324 <title>handle-as-image</title>
3328 <term>Typical use:</term>
3330 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by imagee <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
3335 <term>Effect:</term>
3338 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
3339 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
3340 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
3341 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
3342 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
3343 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
3350 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3352 <para>Boolean.</para>
3357 <term>Parameter:</term>
3369 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
3370 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
3374 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
3375 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
3376 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
3379 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
3380 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
3381 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
3382 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
3388 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3391 <screen># Generic image extensions:
3394 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
3396 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
3397 # blocked as images:
3399 {+block +handle-as-image}
3400 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
3402 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
3412 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3413 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
3414 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
3418 <term>Typical use:</term>
3420 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
3425 <term>Effect:</term>
3428 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
3435 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3437 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3442 <term>Parameter:</term>
3445 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
3454 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
3455 foreign User-Agent set with
3456 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
3460 However some sites with content in different languages check the
3461 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
3462 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
3463 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
3466 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
3467 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
3468 or to languages that aren't widely spread.
3471 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
3472 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
3473 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
3474 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
3475 you should stick to a common language.
3481 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3484 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
3485 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
3486 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
3496 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3497 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
3498 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
3502 <term>Typical use:</term>
3504 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
3509 <term>Effect:</term>
3512 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
3519 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3521 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3526 <term>Parameter:</term>
3529 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
3538 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
3539 documents they assume you want to safe locally before viewing them.
3540 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
3541 the browser is supposed to use by default.
3544 In most browser that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
3545 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
3546 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
3549 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
3550 to prevent this annoyance, but some browser additionally check the
3551 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if the can
3552 display a document without saving it first. In these cases you have
3553 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
3557 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
3558 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
3565 <term>Example usage:</term>
3568 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
3570 +content-type-overwrite {text/plain}\
3571 +hide-content-disposition {block} }
3572 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php</screen>
3580 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3581 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
3582 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
3586 <term>Typical use:</term>
3588 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3593 <term>Effect:</term>
3596 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
3603 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3605 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3610 <term>Parameter:</term>
3613 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
3622 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3623 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
3624 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3627 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since<literal> can
3628 also add or substract a random amount of time to/from the headers value.
3629 You specify a range of hours were the random factor should be chosen from and
3630 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
3631 subtracting, a positive value adding.
3634 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
3635 sure it isn't used as a cookie replacement, but you will run into
3636 caching problems if the random range is to high.
3639 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
3640 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
3641 handle the greater changes.
3644 It is also recommended to use this action together with
3645 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
3651 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3654 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
3655 {+hide-if-modified-since {-1}\
3656 +overwrite-last-modified {randomize}\
3657 +crunch-if-none-match}
3666 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3667 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
3668 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
3672 <term>Typical use:</term>
3674 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
3679 <term>Effect:</term>
3682 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
3683 and prevents adding a new one.
3690 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3692 <para>Boolean.</para>
3697 <term>Parameter:</term>
3709 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
3712 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
3713 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
3714 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
3715 users sharing the same proxy.
3721 <term>Example usage:</term>
3724 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
3732 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3733 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
3734 <title>hide-from-header</title>
3738 <term>Typical use:</term>
3740 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
3745 <term>Effect:</term>
3748 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
3756 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3758 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3763 <term>Parameter:</term>
3766 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
3775 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
3776 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3780 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
3781 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
3782 is actually used by a real person.
3785 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
3786 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
3792 <term>Example usage:</term>
3795 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
3796 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
3804 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3805 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
3806 <title>hide-referrer</title>
3807 <anchor id="hide-referer">
3810 <term>Typical use:</term>
3812 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
3817 <term>Effect:</term>
3820 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
3821 or replaces it with a forged one.
3828 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3830 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3835 <term>Parameter:</term>
3839 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
3842 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
3845 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
3848 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
3858 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
3859 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
3860 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
3861 typed in the address directly.
3864 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
3865 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
3866 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
3867 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
3868 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
3872 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
3873 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
3874 requests, in an attempt to prevent their valuable content from being
3875 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
3878 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
3879 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
3880 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
3883 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
3884 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
3885 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3886 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3887 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3893 <term>Example usage:</term>
3896 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
3897 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
3905 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3906 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
3907 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
3911 <term>Typical use:</term>
3913 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
3918 <term>Effect:</term>
3921 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
3922 in client requests with the specified value.
3929 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3931 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3936 <term>Parameter:</term>
3939 Any user-defined string.
3949 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
3950 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
3951 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
3952 work browser-independently).
3954 <ulink url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
3960 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
3961 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
3962 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
3963 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
3964 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
3965 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
3966 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
3967 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
3968 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
3969 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
3970 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
3973 This action is scheduled for improvement.
3979 <term>Example usage:</term>
3982 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
3990 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3991 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
3992 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
3996 <term>Typical use:</term>
3998 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
4003 <term>Effect:</term>
4006 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
4007 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
4014 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4016 <para>Boolean.</para>
4021 <term>Parameter:</term>
4033 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
4034 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
4035 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
4036 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
4038 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
4039 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
4040 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
4044 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
4045 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
4046 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
4047 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
4048 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
4049 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
4052 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
4053 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
4054 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
4055 </literal> does a fairly good job of catching only the unwanted ones.
4058 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
4059 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
4060 one), you might want to use
4062 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
4068 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
4076 <term>Example usage:</term>
4078 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
4085 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4086 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4087 <title>limit-connect</title>
4091 <term>Typical use:</term>
4093 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
4098 <term>Effect:</term>
4101 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4108 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4110 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4115 <term>Parameter:</term>
4118 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4119 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4128 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4129 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
4130 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
4131 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
4132 for some or all destinations.
4135 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4136 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4137 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4138 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4139 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
4140 abused as TCP relays very easily.
4143 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
4144 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent Privoxy's
4145 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
4146 If you plan to disable SSL by default, consider enabling
4147 <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks ">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
4148 as well, to be able to quickly create exceptions.
4154 <term>Example usages:</term>
4156 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4157 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4158 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4160 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
4161 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4162 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4163 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
4164 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS traffic is allowed</screen>
4171 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4172 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
4173 <title>prevent-compression</title>
4177 <term>Typical use:</term>
4180 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
4181 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
4187 <term>Effect:</term>
4190 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
4197 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4199 <para>Boolean.</para>
4204 <term>Parameter:</term>
4216 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
4217 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
4218 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
4219 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
4220 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
4221 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
4222 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
4223 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
4226 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
4227 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
4231 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
4232 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
4233 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
4239 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4242 <screen># Set default:
4244 {+prevent-compression}
4247 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
4249 {-prevent-compression}
4251 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
4260 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4261 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
4262 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
4266 <term>Typical use:</term>
4268 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4273 <term>Effect:</term>
4276 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
4283 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4285 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4290 <term>Parameter:</term>
4293 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
4294 and <quote>randomize</quote>
4303 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
4304 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
4305 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
4306 version of the page.
4309 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
4310 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
4311 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
4312 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
4313 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
4314 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
4317 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
4318 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
4319 this option together with
4320 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>
4321 to further customize your random range.
4324 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
4325 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
4326 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
4327 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
4328 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
4329 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
4333 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4334 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
4340 <term>Example usage:</term>
4343 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
4344 {+hide-if-modified-since {-1}\
4345 +overwrite-last-modified {randomize}\
4346 +crunch-if-none-match}
4355 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4356 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
4357 <title>redirect</title>
4361 <term>Typical use:</term>
4364 Redirect requests to other sites.
4370 <term>Effect:</term>
4373 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
4374 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
4381 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4383 <para>Parameterized</para>
4388 <term>Parameter:</term>
4400 This action is useful to replace whole documents with your own
4401 ones. For that to work, they have to be available on another server.
4404 You can do the same by combining the actions
4405 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
4406 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> and
4407 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{URL}</link></literal>.
4408 It doesn't sound right for non-image documents, and that's why this action
4412 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
4413 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
4419 <term>Example usage:</term>
4422 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
4423 {+redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css}}
4424 example.com/stylesheet.css</screen>
4433 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4434 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
4435 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
4439 <term>Typical use:</term>
4442 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
4448 <term>Effect:</term>
4451 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
4452 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
4459 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4461 <para>Boolean.</para>
4466 <term>Parameter:</term>
4478 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
4481 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
4487 <term>Example usage:</term>
4490 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
4499 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4500 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
4501 <title>send-wafer</title>
4505 <term>Typical use:</term>
4508 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
4514 <term>Effect:</term>
4517 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
4524 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4526 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4531 <term>Parameter:</term>
4534 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
4535 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
4544 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
4545 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
4548 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
4553 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4556 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
4557 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
4565 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4566 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
4567 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
4571 <term>Typical use:</term>
4574 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
4575 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
4581 <term>Effect:</term>
4584 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
4585 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
4586 forget them in between sessions.
4593 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4595 <para>Boolean.</para>
4600 <term>Parameter:</term>
4612 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
4613 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
4614 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
4617 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
4618 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
4619 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
4620 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
4621 sites, and is the recommended setting.
4624 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
4625 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
4626 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
4627 will be plainly killed.
4630 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
4631 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
4634 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
4635 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
4636 These would have to be removed manually.
4639 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
4640 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
4641 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
4642 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
4648 <term>Example usage:</term>
4651 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
4659 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4660 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
4661 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
4665 <term>Typical use:</term>
4667 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
4672 <term>Effect:</term>
4675 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
4676 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
4677 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
4678 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
4679 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
4680 sent as a replacement.
4687 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4689 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4694 <term>Parameter:</term>
4699 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
4700 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
4705 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
4706 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
4707 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
4708 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
4713 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
4714 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
4715 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
4716 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
4719 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
4720 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
4721 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
4722 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
4723 it over and over again.
4734 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
4735 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
4736 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
4739 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
4740 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
4741 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
4747 <term>Example usage:</term>
4753 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
4756 Redirect to the BSD devil:
4759 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
4762 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
4765 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
4773 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4774 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">
4775 <title>treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</title>
4779 <term>Typical use:</term>
4781 <para>Block forbidden connects with an easy to find error message.</para>
4786 <term>Effect:</term>
4789 If this action is enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> no longer
4790 makes a difference between forbidden connects and ordinary blocks.
4797 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4799 <para>Boolean</para>
4804 <term>Parameter:</term>
4814 By default <application>Privoxy</application> answers
4815 <link linkend="limit-connect">forbidden <quote>Connect</quote> requests</link>
4816 with a short error message inside the headers. If the browser doesn't display
4817 headers (most don't), you just see an empty page.
4820 With this action enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> displays
4821 the message that is used for ordinary blocks instead. If you decide
4822 to make an exception for the page in question, you can do so by
4823 following the <quote>See why</quote> link.
4826 For <quote>Connect</quote> requests the clients tell
4827 <application>Privoxy</application> which host they are interested
4828 in, but not which document they plan to get later. As a result, the
4829 <quote>Go there anyway</quote> link becomes rather useless:
4830 it lets the client request the home page of the forbidden host
4831 through unencrypted HTTP, still using the port of the last request.
4834 If you previously configured <application>Privoxy</application> to do the
4835 request through a SSL tunnel, everything will work. Most likely you haven't
4836 and the server will responds with an error message because it is expecting
4843 <term>Example usage:</term>
4845 <screen>+treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</screen>
4853 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4855 <title>Summary</title>
4857 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
4858 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
4859 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
4860 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
4861 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
4862 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
4868 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4869 <sect2 id="aliases">
4870 <title>Aliases</title>
4872 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
4873 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
4874 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
4875 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
4877 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
4878 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
4879 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
4880 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
4881 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
4885 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
4886 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
4887 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
4888 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
4892 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
4893 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
4894 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
4895 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
4896 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
4897 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
4898 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
4901 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
4902 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
4903 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
4904 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
4905 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
4907 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
4911 Now let's define some aliases...
4916 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
4918 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
4919 # must be at the top of the actions file!
4923 # These aliases just save typing later:
4924 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
4926 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
4927 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
4928 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
4929 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
4931 # These aliases define combinations of actions
4932 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
4934 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
4935 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
4937 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
4939 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
4940 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
4944 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
4945 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
4946 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
4951 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
4952 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
4955 .office.microsoft.com
4956 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
4960 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
4964 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4967 # These shops require pop-ups:
4969 {shop -kill-popups -filter{all-popups}}
4971 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
4975 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
4976 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
4977 in order to function properly.
4981 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4982 <sect2 id="act-examples">
4983 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
4985 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
4986 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
4987 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
4988 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
4989 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
4990 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
4991 file and see how all these pieces come together:
4994 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
4997 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
5001 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
5005 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
5006 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
5007 change or worry about:
5012 ##########################################################################
5013 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5014 ##########################################################################
5017 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
5021 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5022 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5023 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5028 ##########################################################################
5030 ##########################################################################
5033 # These aliases just save typing later:
5034 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5036 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5037 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5038 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5039 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5041 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5042 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5044 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
5045 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
5049 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
5050 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
5051 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
5052 enable the ones we want.
5056 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
5057 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5058 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
5059 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5060 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5061 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
5062 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
5067 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5068 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
5069 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
5070 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5071 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5072 multiple lines with line continuation.
5077 ##########################################################################
5078 # "Defaults" section:
5079 ##########################################################################
5081 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
5082 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
5083 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
5084 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
5085 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
5086 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
5087 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
5088 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
5089 -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-EVENTS">filter{js-events}</link> \
5090 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
5091 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
5092 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
5093 +<link linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{unsolicited-popups}</link> \
5094 -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> \
5095 +<link linkend="FILTER-IMG-REORDER">filter{img-reorder}</link> \
5096 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
5097 -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">filter{banners-by-link}</link> \
5098 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
5099 -<link linkend="FILTER-TINY-TEXTFORMS">filter{tiny-textforms}</link> \
5100 +<link linkend="FILTER-JUMPING-WINDOWS">filter{jumping-windows}</link> \
5101 -<link linkend="FILTER-FRAMESET-BORDERS">filter{frameset-borders}</link> \
5102 -<link linkend="FILTER-DEMORONIZER">filter{demoronizer}</link> \
5103 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
5104 -<link linkend="FILTER-QUICKTIME-KIOSKMODE">filter{quicktime-kioskmode}</link> \
5105 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
5106 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
5107 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
5108 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
5109 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
5110 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5111 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
5112 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
5113 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
5114 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
5115 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
5116 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
5117 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
5118 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
5119 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5121 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
5125 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
5126 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
5127 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
5128 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
5129 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
5130 want to block in later sections.
5134 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
5135 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
5136 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
5137 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
5138 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
5139 of actions explicitly:
5144 ##########################################################################
5145 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
5146 ##########################################################################
5148 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
5151 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
5152 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
5156 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
5157 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
5158 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
5167 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5169 .scan.co.uk</screen>
5172 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
5175 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
5176 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
5177 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
5178 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
5180 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
5181 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
5182 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
5183 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
5184 chosen in the defaults section:
5189 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
5191 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
5194 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
5197 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
5200 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
5201 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
5202 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
5207 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
5211 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
5212 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
5213 .nytimes.com</screen>
5217 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
5218 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
5219 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
5220 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
5221 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
5222 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5223 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
5224 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
5225 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
5231 ##########################################################################
5233 ##########################################################################
5235 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
5236 # blocked further down this file:
5238 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
5239 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
5243 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
5244 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
5245 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5246 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
5247 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
5248 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
5249 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
5250 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
5251 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
5252 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
5253 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
5254 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
5259 # Known ad generators:
5264 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
5265 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
5266 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
5273 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
5274 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
5275 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
5276 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
5277 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
5278 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
5279 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
5280 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
5281 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
5284 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
5285 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
5286 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
5287 to keep the example short:
5292 ##########################################################################
5293 # Block these fine banners:
5294 ##########################################################################
5295 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
5303 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
5304 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
5306 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
5308 .hitbox.com</screen>
5312 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
5313 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
5314 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
5315 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
5318 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
5319 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
5320 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
5321 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
5322 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
5323 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
5327 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
5328 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
5329 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
5330 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
5331 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
5332 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
5333 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
5334 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
5335 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
5336 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
5341 ##########################################################################
5342 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
5343 ##########################################################################
5347 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
5348 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
5349 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
5350 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
5351 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
5352 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
5360 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
5361 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
5365 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
5366 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
5367 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
5368 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
5369 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
5374 # Don't filter code!
5376 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
5378 .sourceforge.net</screen>
5382 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
5383 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
5388 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
5391 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
5392 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
5393 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
5394 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
5395 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
5396 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
5397 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
5398 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
5399 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
5400 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
5401 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
5402 to install updated versions from time to time.
5406 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
5407 <filename>user.action</filename>:
5411 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
5415 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
5419 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
5420 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
5421 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
5426 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
5427 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
5431 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
5432 # be self explanatory.
5434 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
5435 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5436 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5437 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
5438 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5439 -block-as-image = -block
5441 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
5442 # certain types of sites:
5444 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer -kill-popups
5445 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
5447 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
5449 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}</screen>
5455 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
5456 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
5457 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
5458 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
5459 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
5460 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
5465 { allow-all-cookies }
5471 .redhat.com</screen>
5475 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
5480 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
5481 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
5485 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
5490 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
5491 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
5496 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
5497 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
5499 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
5503 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
5504 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
5505 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
5506 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
5507 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
5508 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
5509 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
5510 in default.action anyway:
5515 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
5516 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.gif
5517 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
5521 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
5522 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
5523 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
5524 the file type just by looking at the URL.
5525 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
5527 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
5528 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
5529 browser. Use cautiously.
5537 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
5541 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
5542 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
5543 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
5544 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
5545 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
5546 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
5547 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
5548 that is causing the problem or not.
5554 .forbes.com</screen>
5558 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
5559 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
5560 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
5561 update-safe config, once and for all:
5566 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
5567 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
5571 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
5572 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
5573 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
5574 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
5575 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
5579 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
5580 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
5581 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
5582 sites that you feel provide value to you:
5594 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
5595 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
5596 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
5597 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
5601 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
5602 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
5603 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
5604 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
5605 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
5606 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
5612 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
5613 / # ALL sites</screen>
5619 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5623 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5625 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5627 <sect1 id="filter-file">
5628 <title>The Filter File</title>
5631 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
5632 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
5633 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
5634 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
5635 selected through the <literal>
5636 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
5641 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
5642 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
5643 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
5644 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
5645 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
5646 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
5650 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including
5651 HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
5652 MIME types, <emphasis>except</emphasis> <literal>text/plain</literal>).
5653 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
5654 your own</quote> filters, you should be familiar with HTML syntax.
5658 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
5659 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
5660 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
5661 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
5662 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
5663 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
5664 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
5665 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
5666 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
5667 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
5668 user interface</ulink>.
5672 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
5673 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
5674 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
5675 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
5679 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
5684 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
5688 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
5689 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
5690 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
5691 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
5692 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
5693 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.3.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
5694 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
5695 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
5696 to ungreedy matching.
5700 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
5701 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
5702 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
5704 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
5705 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
5706 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
5707 expressions</ulink> in general.
5708 The below examples might also help to get you started.
5712 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5714 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
5716 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
5717 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
5718 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
5723 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
5727 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
5728 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
5729 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
5730 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
5734 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
5738 Our complete filter now looks like this:
5741 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
5742 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
5746 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
5747 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
5748 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
5754 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
5756 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
5758 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
5762 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
5763 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
5764 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
5765 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
5769 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
5770 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
5771 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
5772 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
5773 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
5777 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
5778 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
5779 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
5780 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
5781 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
5782 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
5783 in the page (and appear in that order).
5787 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
5788 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
5789 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
5790 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
5791 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
5795 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
5796 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
5797 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
5798 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
5799 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
5800 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
5801 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
5802 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
5803 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
5804 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
5805 substitution is global.
5809 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
5810 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
5811 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
5812 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
5813 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
5817 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
5818 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
5819 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
5820 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
5821 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
5822 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
5823 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
5824 Business!"</literal>.
5828 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
5829 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
5830 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
5831 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
5832 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
5833 information anymore.
5837 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
5838 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
5843 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
5845 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
5849 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
5850 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
5851 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
5852 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
5853 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
5854 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
5855 a backreference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
5856 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
5857 a backreference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
5861 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
5862 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
5863 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
5864 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
5865 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
5866 you move your mouse over links.
5871 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
5873 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
5878 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
5879 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
5880 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
5881 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
5882 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
5883 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
5884 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
5885 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
5886 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
5887 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
5892 The last example is from the fun department:
5897 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
5899 # Spice the daily news:
5901 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
5905 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
5906 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
5907 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
5908 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
5909 still replacing the word everywhere else.
5914 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
5916 s* industry[ -]leading \
5918 | customer[ -]focused \
5919 | market[ -]driven \
5920 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
5921 | high[ -]performance \
5922 | solutions[ -]based \
5926 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
5931 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
5932 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
5940 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5942 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
5946 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
5947 keep these listings in sync.
5952 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
5953 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
5958 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
5961 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
5966 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
5967 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
5968 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
5973 removes the bindings to the DOM's
5974 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
5975 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
5976 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
5981 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
5982 full-screen, non-resizable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
5991 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
5994 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
5995 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
5996 resizing etc, anymore.
5999 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
6000 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
6007 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6010 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
6013 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
6014 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
6015 resizable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
6016 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
6022 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
6025 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialogue, where they can be intercepted
6027 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
6028 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
6029 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
6030 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
6033 This filter disables HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets cookies. Use
6034 it wherever you would also use the cookie crunch actions.
6040 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
6043 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
6044 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
6045 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
6052 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
6055 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
6056 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
6057 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
6058 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
6061 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
6062 function to a dummy function during the loading and rendering phase of each
6063 HTML page access, and restoring the function afterwards.
6069 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
6072 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
6073 Note this should be used with more discretion than the above, since it is
6074 more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal usage. Use
6081 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
6084 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
6085 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
6086 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
6092 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
6095 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
6096 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
6097 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
6100 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
6101 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
6107 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
6110 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
6111 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
6112 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
6118 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
6121 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
6122 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
6123 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
6124 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
6125 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
6126 the use ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
6127 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
6130 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
6136 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
6139 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
6140 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
6141 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
6142 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
6145 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
6151 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
6154 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
6155 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
6156 or behave as intended when using this filter.
6162 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
6165 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
6166 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
6167 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
6168 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
6169 small to show their whole content.
6172 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
6179 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
6182 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
6183 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This causes those
6184 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
6187 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
6188 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
6189 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
6190 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if wierd garbage characters
6191 sometimes appear on some pages.
6197 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
6200 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
6201 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
6209 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
6212 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
6213 prevents saving, is disabled.
6219 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
6222 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
6223 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
6229 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
6232 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
6233 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
6239 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
6242 A collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
6243 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
6246 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
6247 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
6253 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
6256 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
6257 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
6260 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
6261 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
6262 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
6263 anything regarding this filter.
6270 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
6284 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6288 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6290 <sect1 id="templates">
6291 <title>Templates</title>
6293 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
6294 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
6295 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
6296 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
6298 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6299 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
6300 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
6305 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
6306 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
6308 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
6312 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
6313 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
6314 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
6315 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
6316 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
6317 ignored when the templates are filled in.
6321 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
6322 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
6323 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
6324 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
6325 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
6329 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
6330 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
6331 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
6332 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
6333 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
6338 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
6340 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
6342 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
6346 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
6347 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
6348 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
6352 <screen><!-- --></screen>
6356 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
6357 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
6362 All templates refer to a style located at
6363 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
6364 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
6365 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
6366 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
6371 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6375 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6377 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
6380 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
6382 <!-- end boilerplate -->
6386 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6389 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6390 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
6392 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
6394 <!-- end copyright -->
6396 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6397 <sect2><title>License</title>
6398 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
6400 <!-- end copyright -->
6402 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6405 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6407 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
6408 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
6410 <!-- end history -->
6413 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
6414 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
6416 <!-- end authors -->
6421 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6424 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6425 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
6426 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
6428 <!-- end seealso -->
6433 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6434 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
6437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6439 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
6441 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
6442 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
6443 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
6444 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
6445 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
6449 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
6450 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
6451 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
6452 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
6456 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
6457 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
6458 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
6459 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
6460 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
6461 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
6462 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
6463 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
6467 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
6468 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
6469 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
6470 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
6471 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
6472 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
6473 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
6474 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
6478 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
6479 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
6480 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
6481 and then some examples:
6486 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
6487 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
6489 </simplelist></para>
6493 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
6496 </simplelist></para>
6500 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
6503 </simplelist></para>
6507 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
6510 </simplelist></para>
6514 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
6515 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
6516 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
6517 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
6518 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
6519 meta-character meaning of any single character).
6521 </simplelist></para>
6525 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
6526 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
6527 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
6528 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
6530 </simplelist></para>
6534 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
6535 or multiple sub-expressions.
6537 </simplelist></para>
6541 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
6542 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
6543 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
6544 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
6545 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
6546 example</quote>, and nothing else.
6548 </simplelist></para>
6551 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
6552 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
6553 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
6554 be more illuminating:
6558 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
6559 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
6560 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
6561 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
6562 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
6563 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
6564 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
6565 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
6566 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
6567 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
6568 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
6569 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
6570 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
6571 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
6576 A now something a little more complex:
6580 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
6581 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
6582 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
6583 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
6584 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
6585 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
6586 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
6591 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
6592 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
6593 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
6594 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
6595 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
6596 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
6597 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
6598 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
6599 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
6600 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
6601 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
6602 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
6603 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
6604 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
6605 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
6606 changing our regular expression to:
6607 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
6612 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
6613 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
6614 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
6615 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
6616 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
6617 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
6618 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
6619 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
6620 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
6621 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
6622 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
6623 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
6624 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
6625 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
6626 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
6627 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
6628 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
6629 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
6630 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
6631 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
6632 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
6633 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
6634 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
6635 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
6636 in the expression anywhere).
6640 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
6641 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
6642 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
6643 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
6644 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
6649 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
6650 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
6654 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
6655 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
6660 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6663 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6665 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
6668 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
6669 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
6670 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
6671 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
6672 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
6673 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
6674 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
6680 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
6681 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
6682 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
6683 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
6696 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
6700 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
6701 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
6702 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
6708 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
6709 editing of actions files:
6713 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
6720 Show the source code version numbers:
6724 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
6731 Show the browser's request headers:
6735 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
6742 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
6746 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
6753 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
6754 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
6758 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
6762 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
6766 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
6771 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
6780 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
6784 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
6785 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
6787 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
6788 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
6789 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
6790 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
6791 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
6792 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
6795 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
6796 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
6797 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
6798 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
6799 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
6800 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
6809 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
6816 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
6823 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
6830 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
6836 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
6841 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
6848 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
6849 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
6850 have more information about bookmarklets.
6859 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6861 <title>Chain of Events</title>
6863 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
6864 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
6871 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
6872 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
6873 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
6879 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
6880 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
6885 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
6887 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
6888 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
6889 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
6890 is then checked and if it does not match, an
6891 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
6892 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
6893 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
6894 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
6899 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
6900 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
6905 If the URL pattern matches the <link
6906 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
6907 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
6912 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
6913 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
6914 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
6915 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
6921 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
6927 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
6928 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
6929 filtered as determined by the
6930 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
6931 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
6932 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
6938 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
6939 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
6940 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
6945 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
6947 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
6948 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
6949 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
6950 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
6951 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
6952 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
6953 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
6954 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
6955 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
6958 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
6960 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
6961 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
6962 to the client browser as it becomes available.
6967 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
6968 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
6969 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
6970 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
6971 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
6972 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
6982 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6983 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
6984 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
6987 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
6988 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
6989 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
6990 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
6991 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
6992 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
6993 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
6994 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
6995 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
7000 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
7001 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
7002 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
7003 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
7004 logs is a good idea too.
7008 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
7009 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
7010 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
7011 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
7015 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
7016 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
7017 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
7018 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
7019 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
7020 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
7021 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
7022 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
7023 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
7024 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
7025 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
7026 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
7027 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
7032 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
7033 and look at it one section at a time:
7038 Matches for http://google.com:
7040 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
7044 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
7045 -crunch-incoming-cookies
7046 +deanimate-gifs{last}
7047 -downgrade-http-version
7051 -filter{shockwave-flash}
7052 -filter{crude-parental}
7053 +filter{html-annoyances}
7054 +filter{js-annoyances}
7055 +filter{content-cookies}
7057 +filter{refresh-tags}
7059 +filter{banners-by-size}
7060 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
7061 +hide-from-header{block}
7062 +hide-referer{forge}
7067 +prevent-compression
7070 +session-cookies-only
7071 +set-image-blocker{pattern} }
7074 { -session-cookies-only }
7080 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
7081 (no matches in this file)
7086 This tells us how we have defined our
7087 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
7088 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
7089 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
7090 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
7091 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
7092 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
7093 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
7094 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
7095 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
7096 -- <quote>/</quote>.
7100 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
7101 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
7102 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
7103 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
7105 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
7106 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
7107 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
7109 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
7110 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
7111 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
7112 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
7113 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
7114 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
7115 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
7120 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
7124 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
7125 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
7126 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
7137 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
7138 -crunch-incoming-cookies
7139 +deanimate-gifs{last}
7140 -downgrade-http-version
7144 -filter{shockwave-flash}
7145 -filter{crude-parental}
7146 +filter{html-annoyances}
7147 +filter{js-annoyances}
7148 +filter{content-cookies}
7150 +filter{refresh-tags}
7152 +filter{banners-by-size}
7153 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
7154 +hide-from-header{block}
7155 +hide-referer{forge}
7160 +prevent-compression
7163 -session-cookies-only
7164 +set-image-blocker{pattern}
7169 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
7170 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
7174 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
7180 { +block +handle-as-image }
7183 { +block +handle-as-image }
7186 { +block +handle-as-image }
7192 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
7193 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
7194 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
7195 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
7196 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
7197 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
7202 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
7203 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
7204 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
7205 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
7206 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
7207 is done here -- as both a <link
7208 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
7209 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
7211 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
7212 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
7217 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
7218 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
7224 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
7226 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
7230 -crunch-incoming-cookies
7231 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
7233 -downgrade-http-version
7235 +filter{html-annoyances}
7236 +filter{js-annoyances}
7237 +filter{kill-popups}
7240 +filter{banners-by-size}
7243 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
7244 +hide-from-header{block}
7245 +hide-referer{forge}
7249 +prevent-compression
7252 +session-cookies-only
7253 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
7256 { +block +handle-as-image }
7262 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
7263 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
7264 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
7265 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
7266 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
7278 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
7279 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
7283 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
7290 { +block +handle-as-image }
7296 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
7297 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
7298 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
7299 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
7300 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. These
7301 tend to be harder to troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of
7302 aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
7310 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
7318 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
7319 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
7320 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
7333 This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most
7334 appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
7339 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
7340 <quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote> rule, which assumes
7341 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well most of the time
7342 since these tend to be standardized).
7346 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
7347 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
7348 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
7349 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
7358 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
7359 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
7360 Public License as published by the Free Software
7361 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
7362 your option) any later version.
7364 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
7365 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
7366 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
7367 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
7368 License for more details.
7370 The GNU General Public License should be included with
7371 this file. If not, you can view it at
7372 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
7373 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
7374 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
7376 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
7377 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
7378 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
7379 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
7381 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
7384 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
7385 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
7387 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
7390 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
7391 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
7392 is dependent on browser.
7394 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
7395 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
7397 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
7398 Some minor clarifications
7400 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
7401 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
7402 and copyright notice dates.
7404 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
7405 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
7407 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
7408 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
7410 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
7411 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
7413 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
7414 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
7415 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
7417 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
7418 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
7421 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
7422 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
7424 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
7425 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
7427 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
7428 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
7430 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
7431 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
7432 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
7435 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
7436 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
7438 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
7439 Added documentation for new chroot option
7441 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
7442 Adapted to the new filters
7444 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
7445 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
7448 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
7449 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
7451 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
7452 Add demoronizer to filter section.
7454 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
7455 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
7457 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
7458 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
7459 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
7461 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
7462 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
7464 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
7465 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
7468 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
7469 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
7471 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
7472 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
7474 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
7475 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
7477 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
7478 Nits re: actions file download
7480 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
7481 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
7483 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
7484 Added 2 Gentoo sections
7486 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
7487 - Added version info to title
7488 - Added info on new filters
7489 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
7490 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
7492 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
7493 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
7495 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
7497 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
7499 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
7500 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
7502 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
7503 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
7505 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
7506 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
7508 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
7509 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
7510 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
7511 so that these are in sync with each other.
7513 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
7514 Ooops missed something from David.
7516 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
7517 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
7518 That's a wrap, I think.
7520 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
7521 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
7523 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
7524 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
7526 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
7527 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
7528 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
7530 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
7531 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
7533 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
7534 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
7535 <literal><link> style.
7536 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
7537 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
7538 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
7539 renders them red (bad in TOC).
7541 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
7542 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
7544 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
7547 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
7548 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
7549 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
7551 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
7552 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
7553 - Small changes to Regex appendix
7554 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
7556 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
7557 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
7559 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
7560 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
7562 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
7563 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
7565 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
7566 Extended and further commented the example actions files
7568 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
7569 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
7572 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
7575 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
7576 Restored alphabetical order of actions
7578 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
7579 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
7581 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
7582 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
7584 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
7585 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
7586 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
7588 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
7589 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
7590 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
7591 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
7593 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
7594 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
7596 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
7599 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
7600 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
7601 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
7603 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
7604 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
7606 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
7607 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
7608 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
7610 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
7611 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
7613 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
7614 more structure in starting section
7616 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
7617 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
7618 will probably break links elsewhere :(
7620 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
7621 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
7622 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
7624 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
7625 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
7626 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
7628 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
7629 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
7631 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
7632 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
7633 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
7635 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
7636 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
7637 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
7639 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
7640 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
7642 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
7643 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
7645 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
7646 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
7648 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
7649 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
7651 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
7652 Updated OSX installation section
7653 Added a few English tweaks here an there
7655 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
7656 Re-write actions section.
7658 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
7659 Fix ugly typo (mine).
7661 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
7662 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
7664 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
7665 Added RPM install detail
7667 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
7670 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
7671 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
7673 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
7674 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
7676 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
7677 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
7679 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
7682 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
7683 Proofreading, part one
7685 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
7686 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
7687 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
7689 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
7690 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
7692 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
7693 Add small section on submitting actions.
7695 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
7698 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
7699 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
7701 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
7702 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
7704 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
7707 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
7708 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
7709 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
7710 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
7711 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
7713 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
7714 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
7716 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
7717 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
7719 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
7720 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
7721 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
7722 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
7723 eventually be set by Makefile.
7724 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
7726 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
7727 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
7729 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
7730 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
7732 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
7733 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
7735 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
7736 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
7737 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
7738 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
7740 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
7743 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
7744 Added more to Anatomy section.
7746 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
7747 Touch up intro for new name.
7749 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
7750 we have a new homepage!
7752 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
7753 A few minor catch ups with name change.
7755 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
7756 configure needs to be generated.
7758 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
7759 we are too lazy to make a block-built
7760 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
7762 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
7763 name change related issue.
7765 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
7766 name change. changed filenames.
7768 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
7771 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
7772 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
7773 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
7774 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
7775 comments and remarks to history untouched.
7777 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
7780 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
7781 New section in Appendix.
7783 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
7784 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
7786 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
7787 correct feedback channels
7789 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
7790 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
7792 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
7795 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
7796 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
7798 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
7799 Added imageblock{pattern}.
7801 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
7804 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
7805 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
7807 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
7808 provide correct feedback channels
7810 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
7811 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
7813 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
7814 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
7816 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
7817 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
7819 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
7820 Add new - - user option.
7822 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
7823 Added section on command line options.
7825 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
7826 Changed default port to 8118
7828 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
7829 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
7831 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
7832 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
7833 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
7836 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
7839 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
7840 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
7842 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
7843 Update OS/2 build section
7845 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
7846 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
7847 will work - no other changes are needed.
7849 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
7850 Added a very short section on Templates
7852 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
7853 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
7855 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
7856 Touch ups for *.action files.
7858 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
7861 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
7862 Updates for recent changes.
7864 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
7865 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
7867 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
7868 Correct 2 minor errors
7870 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
7871 *** empty log message ***
7873 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
7874 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
7876 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
7877 wrong url in documentation
7879 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
7880 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
7882 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
7885 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
7888 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
7891 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
7892 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
7894 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
7895 Some additions, and re-arranging.
7897 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
7900 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
7901 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
7903 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
7906 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
7907 source files for junkbuster documentation
7909 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
7910 first proposal of a structure.
7912 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
7913 docs should have an author.
7915 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
7916 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob