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10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
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13 <!entity p-version "2.9.15">
14 <!entity p-status "beta">
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23 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
24 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP -->
27 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
30 This file belongs into
31 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
33 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9 Exp $
35 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
38 ========================================================================
39 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
40 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
41 ========================================================================
48 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
52 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
53 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
54 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001, 2002 by
55 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
59 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
63 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
64 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
65 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
66 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
73 <holder>Privoxy Developers</holder>
76 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
78 text goes here ........
90 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
91 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
92 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
98 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
100 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
103 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
105 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
108 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
109 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
110 Please see the <ulink url="contact.html">Contact section</ulink> on how to
111 contact the developers.
115 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
121 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
122 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
124 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
125 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
126 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
127 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
128 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
129 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
130 earlier versions. The target release date for
131 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
134 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
137 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
138 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
139 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
144 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
145 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
147 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
148 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
149 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
150 some of them currently under development]]>:
152 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
154 <!-- end boilerplate -->
159 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
162 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
163 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
166 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
167 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
168 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
169 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
174 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
175 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
176 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
177 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
178 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
179 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
180 upgraders</link> section below.
183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
184 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
186 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
189 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
190 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE RPMs and Conectiva</title>
193 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
194 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
195 of configuration files.
199 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
200 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
201 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
202 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
203 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
207 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
208 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm;</literal>. This
209 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
213 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
214 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
215 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
216 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
220 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
221 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
227 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
228 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
231 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
232 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
233 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not
234 use the registry of Windows.
238 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
239 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
242 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
243 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
248 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
249 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
252 First, make sure that no previous installations of
253 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
254 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
255 system. You can do this by
259 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
260 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
261 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
262 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
266 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
267 into will contain all of the configuration files.
271 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
272 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
274 Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file
275 in the finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then,
276 double-click on the package installer icon and follow the installation
278 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the subdirectory
279 <literal>/Applications/Privoxy.app</literal>.
280 <application>Privoxy</application> will set itself up to start
281 automatically on system bring-up via
282 <literal>/System/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
286 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
287 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
289 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
290 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
291 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
292 remove this directory.
295 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
296 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
297 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
298 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
299 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
300 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
301 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
307 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
310 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
311 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
316 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
317 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
318 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
319 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
320 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
324 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
326 <!-- end boilerplate -->
332 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
334 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
335 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
336 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
338 There are very significant changes from earlier
339 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
340 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
341 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
342 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
343 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
344 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
345 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
346 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
347 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
348 files</quote></link>.
349 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
350 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
353 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
354 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
355 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
356 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
359 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
360 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
361 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
362 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
363 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
364 recommended to use the new configuration files.
367 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
375 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
381 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
382 important configuration files!
387 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
388 at the special URL: <ulink
389 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
390 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
391 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
392 <application>Privoxy</application>.
397 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
398 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
399 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
400 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
401 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
402 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
407 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
408 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
409 Some installers may not automatically start
410 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
418 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
419 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
425 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
426 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
432 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
433 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
440 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
441 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
442 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
443 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
450 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
451 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
452 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
458 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
459 HTTPS proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
460 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
461 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
462 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
463 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
464 for more details on this.
470 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
476 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
477 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
478 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
479 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
482 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
483 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
484 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
485 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
486 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
493 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
494 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
495 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
496 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
497 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
498 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
499 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
500 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
501 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
502 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
508 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
509 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
516 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
523 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
526 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
527 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
529 FIXME: This is unfinished. Do not publish yet!
532 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
533 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
534 user. But, ad blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
537 This section will provide a quick overview of ad blocking so
538 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
539 information provided below, though this is highly recommeneded.
542 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
543 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block a few
544 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
545 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
546 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
547 configuration to solve these unintended consequences.
550 Secondly, a quick note on <application>Privoxy's </application>
551 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
552 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
553 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
554 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
555 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
556 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
557 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
558 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
559 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
562 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
563 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
564 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
565 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs.
568 When you connect to a website, the full path of the URL will either match one
569 of actions as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
570 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
571 action accordingly. If not, then nothing special happens. Futhermore, web
572 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
573 display as it parses the original page's HTML content. An ad image for
574 instance, is just a URL embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may
575 be on the same server, or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex
576 web pages will have many such embedded URLs.
580 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <link
581 linkend="block">block</link>, <link
582 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link>, and <link
583 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>.
591 <link linkend="block"><emphasis>block</emphasis></link> - this action stops
592 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
593 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
594 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
595 communication with the remote server. If this is the only action that
596 matches for a particular URL, then <application>Privoxy</application> will
597 display its own BLOCKED page to let you now what has happened.
603 <link linkend="handle-as-image"><emphasis>handle-as-image</emphasis></link> -
604 forces <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as if it were
605 an image. <application>Privoxy</application> knows about common image
606 types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this does not apply.
607 So we'll force it. This is particularly important for ad blocking, since
608 once we can treat it as an image, we can make more intelligent decisisions
609 on how to handle it. There are some limitations to this though. For
610 instance, you can't just force an image substituion for an entire HTML page
618 linkend="set-image-blocker"><emphasis>set-image-blocker</emphasis></link> -
619 tells <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of
620 an ad image that has hit a block rule. For this to come into play,
621 the URL must match a block action somewhere in the configuration.
622 <emphasis>And</emphasis>, it must also either be of a known image type, or
624 linkend="handle-as-image"><emphasis>handle-as-image</emphasis></link>
628 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
632 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkboard pattern, so that an ad
633 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
638 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
639 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
644 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any URL of the
658 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
661 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
663 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
665 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
666 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
667 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
668 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
669 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
673 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
674 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
675 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
676 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
677 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
678 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
679 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
683 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
684 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
685 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
686 <application>Privoxy</application>!
690 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
691 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
692 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
693 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
694 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
697 <sect2 id="start-redhatdebian">
698 <title>RedHat, Conectiva and Debian</title>
700 We use a script. Note that RedHat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
701 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its
702 main configuration file. FIXME: Debian??
706 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
711 <sect2 id="start-suse">
714 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
715 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
725 <sect2 id="start-windows">
726 <title>Windows</title>
728 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
729 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
730 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
731 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
735 <sect2 id="start-unices">
736 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
738 Example Unix startup command:
742 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
747 <sect2 id="start-os2">
754 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
755 <title>MAX OSX</title>
762 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
763 <title>AmigaOS</title>
772 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
776 must find a better place for this paragraph
779 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
780 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
781 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
782 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
783 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
784 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
788 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
789 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
790 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
791 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
792 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
793 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
794 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
795 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
796 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
800 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
801 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
802 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
804 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
805 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
806 popups (explained below).
810 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
811 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
812 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
813 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
814 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
815 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
816 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
817 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
818 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
822 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
823 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
824 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
825 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
826 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
827 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
828 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
829 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
830 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
834 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
835 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
836 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
837 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
838 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
839 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
840 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
844 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
845 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
846 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
847 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
848 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
849 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
854 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
855 url="actions-file.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
856 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
861 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
862 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
863 section <ulink url="contact.html"><quote>Contacting the
864 Developers</quote></ulink> below.
869 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
870 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
871 <title>Command Line Options</title>
873 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
874 command-line options:
882 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
885 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
890 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
893 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
898 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
901 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
902 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
907 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
911 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
912 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
913 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
914 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
919 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
923 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
924 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
925 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
930 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
933 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
934 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
935 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
936 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
937 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
938 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
949 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
952 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
953 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
955 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
956 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
957 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
958 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
962 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
965 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
967 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
968 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
969 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
970 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
971 You will see the following section:
975 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
978 <bridgehead renderas="sect2">Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
982 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
985 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
988 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
991 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
994 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1002 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1003 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1004 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1005 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1006 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1007 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1011 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1012 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1013 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1014 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1015 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1016 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1017 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1018 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1024 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1029 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1031 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1032 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1034 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1035 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1036 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1037 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1038 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1039 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1043 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1044 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1045 principle configuration files are:
1053 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1054 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1055 on Windows. This is a required file.
1061 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1062 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1063 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1064 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1065 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1066 as many websites as possible.
1069 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1070 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1071 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1072 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1073 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1074 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1075 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1076 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1079 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1081 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1083 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1084 various actions files.
1090 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1091 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1092 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1093 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1094 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1102 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1103 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1104 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1105 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1106 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1107 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1112 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1113 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1114 maximum flexibility.
1118 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1119 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1120 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1121 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1122 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1123 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1124 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1129 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1130 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1131 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1132 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1138 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1141 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1144 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
1147 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
1148 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
1149 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
1150 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
1158 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis></literallayout>
1164 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
1165 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
1166 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
1170 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
1171 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
1172 for what happens if you leave them unset.
1176 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
1177 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
1178 where you may be surfing).
1182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1184 <sect2 id="conf-log-loc">
1185 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
1188 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
1189 other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
1190 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
1191 where to find those other files.
1195 The user running Privoxy, must have read permission for all
1196 configuration files, and write permission to any files that would
1197 be modified, such as log files.
1200 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="confdir"><title>confdir</title>
1204 <term>Specifies:</term>
1206 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
1210 <term>Type of value:</term>
1212 <para>Path name</para>
1216 <term>Default value:</term>
1218 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
1222 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1224 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
1231 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
1234 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
1235 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
1236 For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
1237 <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
1238 output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
1246 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logdir"><title>logdir</title>
1250 <term>Specifies:</term>
1253 The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
1254 <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
1259 <term>Type of value:</term>
1261 <para>Path name</para>
1265 <term>Default value:</term>
1267 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
1271 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1273 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
1280 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
1287 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="actionsfile"><title>
1290 <anchor id="default.action">
1291 <anchor id="standard.action">
1292 <anchor id="user.action">
1293 <!-- Note: slightly modified this section 04/28/02, hal. See NOTE. -->
1296 <term>Specifies:</term>
1299 The <link linkend="actions-file">actions file(s)</link> to use
1304 <term>Type of value:</term>
1306 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal>, without the <literal>.action</literal> suffix</para>
1310 <term>Default values:</term>
1314 <msgtext><literallayout> standard # Internal purposes, no editing recommended</literallayout></msgtext>
1317 <msgtext><literallayout> default # Main actions file</literallayout></msgtext>
1320 <msgtext><literallayout> user # User customizations</literallayout></msgtext>
1326 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1329 No actions are taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
1337 Multiple <literal>actionsfile</literal> lines are permitted, and are in fact recommended!
1340 The default values include standard.action, which is used for internal
1341 purposes and should be loaded, default.action, which is the
1342 <quote>main</quote> actions file maintained by the developers, and
1343 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can make your personal additions.
1346 Actions files are where all the per site and per URL configuration is done for
1347 ad blocking, cookie management, privacy considerations, etc.
1348 There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without at
1349 least one actions file.
1356 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filterfile"><title>filterfile</title>
1357 <anchor id="default.filter">
1360 <term>Specifies:</term>
1363 The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link> to use
1368 <term>Type of value:</term>
1370 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1374 <term>Default value:</term>
1376 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
1380 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1383 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
1384 <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
1385 actions in the actions files are turned neutral.
1393 The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link> contains content modification
1394 rules that use <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link>. These rules permit
1395 powerful changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
1396 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
1397 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
1398 it appears on a Web page.
1402 <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
1403 actions rely on the relevant filter (<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>)
1404 to be defined in the filter file!
1407 A pre-defined filter file called <filename>default.filter</filename> that contains
1408 a bunch of handy filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
1409 See the section on the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
1417 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logfile"><title>logfile</title>
1421 <term>Specifies:</term>
1429 <term>Type of value:</term>
1431 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1435 <term>Default value:</term>
1437 <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
1441 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1444 No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>stderr</literal>).
1452 The windows version will additionally log to the console.
1455 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
1456 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
1457 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
1458 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
1459 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
1462 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
1463 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
1464 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat, a <command>logrotate</command>
1465 script has been included.
1468 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
1469 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
1470 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
1471 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
1474 Any log files must be writable by whatever user <application>Privoxy</application>
1475 is being run as (default on UNIX, user id is <quote>privoxy</quote>).
1482 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jarfile"><title>jarfile</title>
1486 <term>Specifies:</term>
1489 The file to store intercepted cookies in
1494 <term>Type of value:</term>
1496 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1500 <term>Default value:</term>
1502 <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
1506 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1509 Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
1517 The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
1524 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trustfile"><title>trustfile</title>
1527 <term>Specifies:</term>
1530 The trust file to use
1535 <term>Type of value:</term>
1537 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1541 <term>Default value:</term>
1543 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
1547 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1550 The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
1558 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
1559 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
1562 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
1563 access to sites that are named in the trustfile.
1564 You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
1565 the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
1566 trusted referrer was used.
1567 The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
1568 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
1571 If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
1579 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1583 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1585 <sect2 id="local-set-up">
1586 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
1589 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
1590 than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
1591 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies, etc.
1594 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="user-manual"><title>user-manual</title>
1597 <term>Specifies:</term>
1600 Location of the <application>Privoxy</application> User Manual.
1605 <term>Type of value:</term>
1607 <para>A fully qualified URI</para>
1611 <term>Default value:</term>
1613 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1617 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1620 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/<replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable>/user-manual/</ulink>
1621 will be used, where <replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable> is the <application>Privoxy</application> version.
1629 The User Manual URI is used for help links from some of the internal CGI pages.
1630 The manual itself is normally packaged with the binary distributions, so you probably want
1631 to set this to a locally installed copy. For multi-user setups, you could provide a copy on
1632 a local webserver for all your users and use the corresponding URL here.
1638 Unix, in local filesystem:
1641 <screen>user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
1644 Any platform, on local webserver (called <quote>local-webserver</quote>):
1647 <screen>user-manual http://local-webserver/privoxy-user-manual/</screen>
1651 If set, this option should be <emphasis>the first option in the config file</emphasis>, because
1652 it is used while the config file is being read.
1660 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trust-info-url"><title>trust-info-url</title>
1664 <term>Specifies:</term>
1667 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
1672 <term>Type of value:</term>
1678 <term>Default value:</term>
1680 <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
1684 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1687 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
1695 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
1696 activated. (See <link linkend="trustfile"><emphasis>trustfile</emphasis></link> above.)
1699 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
1700 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
1701 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
1704 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
1705 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
1712 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="admin-address"><title>admin-address</title>
1716 <term>Specifies:</term>
1719 An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
1724 <term>Type of value:</term>
1726 <para>Email address</para>
1730 <term>Default value:</term>
1732 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1736 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1739 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1747 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1748 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1756 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="proxy-info-url"><title>proxy-info-url</title>
1760 <term>Specifies:</term>
1763 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
1764 configuration or policies.
1769 <term>Type of value:</term>
1775 <term>Default value:</term>
1777 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1781 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1784 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1792 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1793 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1797 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
1805 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1807 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1809 <sect2 id="debugging">
1810 <title>Debugging</title>
1813 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
1814 Note that you might also want to invoke
1815 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
1816 command line option when debugging.
1819 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="debug"><title>debug</title>
1823 <term>Specifies:</term>
1826 Key values that determine what information gets logged to the
1827 <link linkend="logfile"><emphasis>logfile</emphasis></link>.
1832 <term>Type of value:</term>
1834 <para>Integer values</para>
1838 <term>Default value:</term>
1840 <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
1844 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1847 Nothing gets logged.
1855 The available debug levels are:
1859 debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1860 debug 2 # show each connection status
1861 debug 4 # show I/O status
1862 debug 8 # show header parsing
1863 debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
1864 debug 32 # debug force feature
1865 debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
1866 debug 128 # debug fast redirects
1867 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1868 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1869 debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
1870 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1871 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1875 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1876 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
1879 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
1880 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
1881 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
1882 only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
1883 a hell of an output (especially 16).
1887 The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
1888 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1891 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1892 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
1899 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="single-threaded"><title>single-threaded</title>
1903 <term>Specifies:</term>
1906 Whether to run only one server thread
1911 <term>Type of value:</term>
1913 <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
1917 <term>Default value:</term>
1919 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1923 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1926 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
1927 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
1935 This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
1936 need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
1945 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1947 <sect2 id="access-control">
1948 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
1951 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
1952 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
1955 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="listen-address"><title>listen-address</title>
1959 <term>Specifies:</term>
1962 The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
1963 listen for client requests.
1968 <term>Type of value:</term>
1970 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1975 <term>Default value:</term>
1977 <para>127.0.0.1:8118</para>
1981 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1984 Bind to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
1985 home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
1994 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
1997 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1998 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1999 will need to override the default.
2002 If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
2003 bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
2004 from the Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (ACL's)
2005 (see <quote>ACLs</quote> below), or a firewall.
2010 <term>Example:</term>
2013 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
2014 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
2015 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
2016 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
2020 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
2028 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="toggle"><title>toggle</title>
2032 <term>Specifies:</term>
2035 Initial state of "toggle" status
2040 <term>Type of value:</term>
2046 <term>Default value:</term>
2052 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2055 Act as if toggled on
2063 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
2064 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
2065 proxy where all ad blocking, filtering, etc are disabled. See
2066 <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal> below. This is not really useful
2067 anymore, since toggling is much easier via <ulink
2068 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web interface</ulink> than via
2069 editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
2072 The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
2073 if this option is present.
2081 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-remote-toggle"><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
2084 <term>Specifies:</term>
2087 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
2088 feature</ulink> may be used
2093 <term>Type of value:</term>
2099 <term>Default value:</term>
2105 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2108 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
2116 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
2117 content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
2121 For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
2122 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
2123 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
2124 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
2125 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
2126 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
2129 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
2130 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
2138 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-edit-actions"><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
2141 <term>Specifies:</term>
2144 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions
2145 file editor</ulink> may be used
2150 <term>Type of value:</term>
2156 <term>Default value:</term>
2162 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2165 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
2173 For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
2174 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
2175 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
2176 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
2177 modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
2178 recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
2181 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
2182 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
2189 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="acls"><title>
2190 ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
2191 <anchor id="permit-acces">
2192 <anchor id="deny-acces">
2196 <term>Specifies:</term>
2199 Who can access what.
2204 <term>Type of value:</term>
2207 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
2208 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
2211 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
2212 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
2213 DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
2214 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
2215 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
2216 destination part are optional.
2221 <term>Default value:</term>
2223 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2227 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2230 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
2238 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
2239 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
2240 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
2241 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost
2242 (127.0.0.1) or internal (home) network address by means of the
2243 <link linkend="listen-address"><emphasis>listen-address</emphasis></link>
2247 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
2248 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
2252 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
2253 If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
2254 talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
2255 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
2256 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
2259 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
2260 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
2261 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
2262 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
2263 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
2264 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
2267 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
2268 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
2269 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
2270 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
2273 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
2274 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
2279 <term>Examples:</term>
2282 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
2283 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
2284 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
2285 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
2289 permit-access localhost
2293 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
2294 nothing but www.example.com:
2298 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
2302 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
2303 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
2307 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
2308 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
2316 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="buffer-limit"><title>buffer-limit</title>
2320 <term>Specifies:</term>
2323 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
2328 <term>Type of value:</term>
2330 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
2334 <term>Default value:</term>
2340 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2343 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
2351 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
2352 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
2353 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
2354 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
2355 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
2359 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
2360 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
2361 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
2362 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
2363 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
2373 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2376 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2378 <sect2 id="forwarding">
2379 <title>Forwarding</title>
2382 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
2384 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
2385 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
2386 through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
2387 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
2388 Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
2389 proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
2390 runs on has no direct Internet access.
2394 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
2395 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
2398 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward"><title>forward</title>
2401 <term>Specifies:</term>
2404 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
2409 <term>Type of value:</term>
2412 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2413 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2416 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2417 chapter on domain matching in the <filename>default.action</filename> file),
2418 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
2419 as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
2420 <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
2421 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
2422 values from 1 to 64535
2427 <term>Default value:</term>
2429 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2433 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2436 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
2444 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2445 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
2448 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2453 <term>Examples:</term>
2456 Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
2460 forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
2465 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
2466 to that ISP's sites:
2470 forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
2471 forward .example-isp.net .
2479 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="socks"><title>
2480 forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
2481 <anchor id="forward-socks4">
2482 <anchor id="forward-socks4a">
2486 <term>Specifies:</term>
2489 Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
2494 <term>Type of value:</term>
2497 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2498 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2499 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2502 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2503 chapter on domain matching in the <filename>default.action</filename> file),
2504 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
2505 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2506 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
2507 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
2512 <term>Default value:</term>
2514 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2518 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2521 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2529 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2532 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2533 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2534 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2537 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2538 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2544 <term>Examples:</term>
2547 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2548 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2549 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2554 forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
2555 forward .example.com .
2559 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2563 forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2571 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="advanced-forwarding-examples"><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2574 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2575 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2576 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2577 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2581 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2582 isp-b.net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2583 configuration can look like this:
2593 forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
2604 forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
2609 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2610 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2611 of both isp-a and isp-b.
2615 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2616 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
2617 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2621 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2622 run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
2627 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2628 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2630 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2633 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2634 always_direct allow ftp
2636 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2637 never_direct allow all</screen>
2641 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2642 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2649 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2652 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2654 <sect2 id="windows-gui">
2655 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
2657 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
2658 Windows GUI interface:
2661 <anchor id="activity-animation">
2663 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
2664 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
2665 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
2672 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
2678 <anchor id="log-messages">
2680 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2681 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
2689 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
2695 <anchor id="log-buffer-size">
2697 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
2698 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
2699 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
2703 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
2704 eat up all your memory!
2711 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
2717 <anchor id="log-max-lines">
2719 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
2720 in the log buffer. See above.
2727 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
2733 <anchor id="log-highlight-messages">
2735 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2736 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
2737 messages with a bold-faced font:
2744 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
2750 <anchor id="log-font-name">
2752 The font used in the console window:
2759 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
2765 <anchor id="log-font-size">
2767 Font size used in the console window:
2774 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
2780 <anchor id="show-on-task-bar">
2782 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
2783 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
2791 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
2797 <anchor id="close-button-minimizes">
2799 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
2800 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
2801 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
2808 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
2814 <anchor id="hide-console">
2816 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
2817 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
2818 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
2826 #<emphasis>hide-console</emphasis>
2835 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2839 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2841 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2844 The actions files are used to define what actions
2845 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
2846 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2847 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
2848 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application> (as of
2849 version 2.9.15), with differing purposes:
2856 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
2857 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
2858 provide a base level of functionality for
2859 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
2860 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
2861 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and making
2867 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2868 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
2869 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
2870 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
2875 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
2876 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
2877 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
2878 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
2879 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
2887 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2888 file, and are processed in the order they are defined. The content of these
2889 can all be viewed and edited from <ulink
2890 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2894 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2895 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2896 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2897 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2898 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2899 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2900 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2901 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2902 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2903 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2904 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2905 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2909 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2910 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2911 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2912 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2913 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2917 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2919 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2921 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2922 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2923 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2924 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
2925 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2926 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2927 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per
2928 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2929 regularly use and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe
2930 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2934 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2935 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2936 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2937 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2941 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2943 <title>How to Edit</title>
2945 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2946 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2947 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2948 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
2949 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
2950 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Advanced</quote>.
2954 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2955 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
2961 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2962 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
2964 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2965 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will be discussed later. For now
2966 let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
2967 up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
2968 separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
2969 is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
2973 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2974 compared to all patterns in each action file file. Every time it matches, the list of
2975 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
2976 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
2977 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
2978 the effects are aggregated (e.g. a URL might match both the
2979 <ulink url="actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>
2980 and <ulink url="actions-file.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink> actions).
2985 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
2986 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2990 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2991 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
2995 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2996 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2997 <title>Patterns</title>
2999 Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
3000 where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
3001 are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
3006 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
3009 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3010 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
3015 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
3018 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
3024 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
3027 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
3028 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
3033 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
3036 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
3037 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
3042 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
3045 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
3046 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
3053 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3054 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
3057 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
3058 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
3064 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
3067 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
3068 <literal>.example.com</literal>
3073 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
3076 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
3077 <literal>www.</literal>
3082 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
3085 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
3086 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
3093 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
3094 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
3095 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
3096 any single character, you can define character classes in square
3097 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
3102 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3105 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
3106 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
3111 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3114 matches all of the above, and then some.
3119 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
3122 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
3123 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
3128 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
3131 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
3132 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
3133 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
3134 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
3142 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3145 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3146 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
3149 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
3150 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
3155 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
3156 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
3157 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
3158 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
3159 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
3160 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
3164 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
3165 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
3166 for the beginning of a line).
3170 Please also note that matching in the path is case
3171 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
3172 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
3173 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
3174 <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
3175 documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
3176 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
3182 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3185 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3187 <sect2 id="actions">
3188 <title>Actions</title>
3190 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
3191 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
3192 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
3193 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
3194 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
3195 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
3196 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
3197 previously applied.</quote>
3202 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
3203 separated by whitespace, like in
3204 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
3205 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
3206 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
3207 of the actions file.
3211 There are three classes of actions:
3218 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
3219 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
3223 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
3224 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
3227 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
3234 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
3239 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
3240 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
3241 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
3244 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
3245 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
3248 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
3254 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
3255 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
3256 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
3257 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
3258 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
3259 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
3263 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
3264 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
3265 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
3266 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
3269 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
3270 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
3278 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
3279 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
3280 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
3281 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
3282 files will give a good starting point).
3286 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
3287 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
3288 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
3289 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
3290 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
3291 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
3292 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
3293 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
3296 <!-- start actions listing -->
3298 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
3302 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3303 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
3304 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
3306 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3309 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3311 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
3312 <title><emphasis>add-header</emphasis></title>
3316 <term>Typical use:</term>
3318 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
3323 <term>Effect:</term>
3326 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
3333 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3335 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3340 <term>Parameter:</term>
3343 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
3344 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
3354 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
3355 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
3356 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
3363 <term>Example usage:</term>
3366 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
3374 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3375 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
3376 <title><emphasis>block</emphasis></title>
3380 <term>Typical use:</term>
3382 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
3387 <term>Effect:</term>
3390 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
3391 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
3392 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
3393 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
3400 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3402 <para>Boolean.</para>
3407 <term>Parameter:</term>
3417 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3418 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
3419 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
3420 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
3421 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
3422 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
3423 right now, you can take a look at the
3424 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
3428 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3429 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3430 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
3431 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3432 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
3433 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
3436 It is important to understand this process, in order
3437 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3438 ads and other unwanted content.
3441 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3442 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3443 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3444 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3445 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3451 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3454 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3455 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3457 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
3468 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3469 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3470 <title><emphasis>crunch-incoming-cookies</emphasis></title>
3474 <term>Typical use:</term>
3477 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
3483 <term>Effect:</term>
3486 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3493 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3495 <para>Boolean.</para>
3500 <term>Parameter:</term>
3512 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
3513 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
3514 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3515 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
3518 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3519 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3520 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set.
3526 <term>Example usage:</term>
3529 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3537 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3538 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3539 <title><emphasis>crunch-outgoing-cookies</emphasis></title>
3543 <term>Typical use:</term>
3546 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
3552 <term>Effect:</term>
3555 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3562 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3564 <para>Boolean.</para>
3569 <term>Parameter:</term>
3581 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
3582 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
3583 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3584 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
3587 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3588 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3589 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3595 <term>Example usage:</term>
3598 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3607 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3608 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3609 <title><emphasis>deanimate-gifs</emphasis></title>
3613 <term>Typical use:</term>
3615 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3620 <term>Effect:</term>
3623 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3630 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3632 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3637 <term>Parameter:</term>
3640 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3649 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3650 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3651 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3652 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3653 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3654 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3657 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3658 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3665 <term>Example usage:</term>
3668 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3675 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3676 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3677 <title><emphasis>downgrade-http-version</emphasis></title>
3681 <term>Typical use:</term>
3683 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3688 <term>Effect:</term>
3691 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3698 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3700 <para>Boolean.</para>
3705 <term>Parameter:</term>
3717 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3718 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3719 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3720 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
3721 is a chance you might need this action.
3727 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3730 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3731 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3739 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3740 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3741 <title><emphasis>fast-redirects</emphasis></title>
3745 <term>Typical use:</term>
3747 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links</para>
3752 <term>Effect:</term>
3755 Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
3762 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3764 <para>Boolean.</para>
3769 <term>Parameter:</term>
3781 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3782 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3783 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3784 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3785 <emphasis>http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else</emphasis>.
3788 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3789 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3790 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3791 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3792 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3796 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3797 It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly
3798 many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in
3799 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some sites just don't work without
3806 <term>Example usage:</term>
3809 <screen>{+fast-redirects}</screen>
3818 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3819 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3820 <title><emphasis>filter</emphasis></title>
3824 <term>Typical use:</term>
3826 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
3831 <term>Effect:</term>
3834 Text documents, including HTML and JavaScript, to which this action applies, are filtered on-the-fly
3835 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3842 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3844 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3849 <term>Parameter:</term>
3852 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
3853 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
3854 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3855 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>)
3864 For your convenience, there are a bunch of pre-defined filters available
3865 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the example below for
3869 This is potentially a very powerful feature! But <quote>rolling your own</quote>
3870 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
3873 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3874 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3875 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3876 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3877 noticeable on slower connections.
3880 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
3881 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
3882 would normally be sent compressed, use the
3883 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3884 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3887 Filtering can achieve some of the effects as the
3888 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3889 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners.
3892 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or improved filters is particularly
3899 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file):</term>
3902 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3903 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
3906 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3907 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
3910 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3911 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)</screen>
3914 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3915 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come sneaking in the HTML or JS content</screen>
3918 <anchor id="filter-popups">
3919 <screen>+filter{popups} # Kill all popups in JS and HTML</screen>
3922 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3923 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
3926 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3927 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3930 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3931 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable</screen>
3934 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3935 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
3938 <anchor id="filter-nimda">
3939 <screen>+filter{nimda} # Remove Nimda (virus) code.</screen>
3942 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3943 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
3946 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3947 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"</screen>
3955 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3956 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
3957 <title><emphasis>handle-as-image</emphasis></title>
3961 <term>Typical use:</term>
3963 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
3968 <term>Effect:</term>
3971 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
3972 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
3973 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
3974 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
3975 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
3976 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
3983 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3985 <para>Boolean.</para>
3990 <term>Parameter:</term>
4002 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4003 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4007 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4008 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4009 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4012 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (inline) ad
4013 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4014 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4015 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4021 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4024 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4027 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4029 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4030 # blocked as images:
4032 {+block +handle-as-image}
4033 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
4035 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
4045 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4046 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
4047 <title><emphasis>hide-forwarded-for-headers</emphasis></title>
4051 <term>Typical use:</term>
4053 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
4058 <term>Effect:</term>
4061 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
4062 and prevents adding a new one.
4069 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4071 <para>Boolean.</para>
4076 <term>Parameter:</term>
4088 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
4091 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
4092 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
4093 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
4094 users sharing the same proxy.
4100 <term>Example usage:</term>
4103 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
4111 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4112 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4113 <title><emphasis>hide-from-header</emphasis></title>
4117 <term>Typical use:</term>
4119 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4124 <term>Effect:</term>
4127 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4135 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4137 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4142 <term>Parameter:</term>
4145 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4154 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4155 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4159 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4160 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4161 is actually used by a real person.
4164 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4165 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4171 <term>Example usage:</term>
4174 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4175 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4184 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4185 <title><emphasis>hide-referrer</emphasis></title>
4186 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4189 <term>Typical use:</term>
4191 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4196 <term>Effect:</term>
4199 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4200 or replaces it with a forged one.
4207 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4209 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4214 <term>Parameter:</term>
4218 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header completely.</para>
4221 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4224 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4234 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
4235 not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable
4236 content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded
4237 by <emphasis>their</emphasis> banners).
4240 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4241 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4242 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4243 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4244 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4250 <term>Example usage:</term>
4253 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4254 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4262 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4263 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4264 <title><emphasis>hide-user-agent</emphasis></title>
4268 <term>Typical use:</term>
4270 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4275 <term>Effect:</term>
4278 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4279 in client requests with the specified value.
4286 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4288 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4293 <term>Parameter:</term>
4296 Any user-defined string.
4306 This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order
4307 to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4308 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> a <ulink
4309 url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
4314 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4315 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4316 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4317 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4318 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4319 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4320 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4321 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
4322 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
4323 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
4324 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
4327 This action is scheduled for improvement.
4333 <term>Example usage:</term>
4336 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4344 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4345 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
4346 <title><emphasis>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></emphasis></title>
4350 <term>Typical use:</term>
4352 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows</para>
4357 <term>Effect:</term>
4360 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
4361 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
4368 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4370 <para>Boolean.</para>
4375 <term>Parameter:</term>
4387 This action is easily confused with the built-in, hardwired <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
4388 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
4389 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
4390 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
4392 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>popups</replaceable>}</literal>
4396 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
4397 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
4398 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
4399 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
4400 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
4401 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
4404 Killing all pop-ups is a dangerous business. Many shops and banks rely on
4405 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and killing only the unwanted pop-ups
4406 would require artificial intelligence in <application>Privoxy</application>.
4407 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
4408 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
4409 one), you might want to use
4411 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
4417 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
4425 <term>Example usage:</term>
4427 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
4434 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4435 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4436 <title><emphasis>limit-connect</emphasis></title>
4440 <term>Typical use:</term>
4442 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay</para>
4447 <term>Effect:</term>
4450 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4457 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4459 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4464 <term>Parameter:</term>
4467 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4468 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4477 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4478 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
4479 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
4480 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
4481 for some or all destinations.
4484 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4485 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4486 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4487 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4488 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
4489 abused as TCP relays very easily.
4492 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
4493 change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
4499 <term>Example usages:</term>
4501 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4502 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4503 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4505 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
4506 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4507 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4508 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)</screen>
4515 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4516 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
4517 <title><emphasis>prevent-compression</emphasis></title>
4521 <term>Typical use:</term>
4524 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
4525 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s
4531 <term>Effect:</term>
4534 Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
4541 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4543 <para>Boolean.</para>
4548 <term>Parameter:</term>
4560 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
4561 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
4562 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
4563 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
4564 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
4565 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
4566 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
4567 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
4570 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
4571 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
4575 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
4576 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
4577 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
4583 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4586 <screen># Set default:
4588 {+prevent-compression}
4591 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
4593 {-prevent-compression}
4595 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
4604 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4605 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
4606 <title><emphasis>send-vanilla-wafer</emphasis></title>
4610 <term>Typical use:</term>
4613 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
4619 <term>Effect:</term>
4622 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
4623 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
4630 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4632 <para>Boolean.</para>
4637 <term>Parameter:</term>
4649 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
4652 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
4658 <term>Example usage:</term>
4661 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
4670 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4671 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
4672 <title><emphasis>send-wafer</emphasis></title>
4676 <term>Typical use:</term>
4679 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
4685 <term>Effect:</term>
4688 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
4695 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4697 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4702 <term>Parameter:</term>
4705 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
4706 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
4715 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
4716 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
4719 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
4724 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4727 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
4728 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
4736 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4737 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
4738 <title><emphasis>session-cookies-only</emphasis></title>
4742 <term>Typical use:</term>
4745 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
4751 <term>Effect:</term>
4754 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> server headers.
4755 Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and forget them in between sessions.
4762 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4764 <para>Boolean.</para>
4769 <term>Parameter:</term>
4781 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
4782 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
4783 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
4786 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
4787 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
4788 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
4789 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
4790 sites, and is the recommended setting.
4793 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
4794 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
4795 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
4796 will be plainly killed.
4799 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
4800 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
4806 <term>Example usage:</term>
4809 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
4817 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4818 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
4819 <title><emphasis>set-image-blocker</emphasis></title>
4823 <term>Typical use:</term>
4825 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
4830 <term>Effect:</term>
4833 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
4834 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
4835 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
4836 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
4837 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
4838 sent as a replacement.
4845 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4847 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4852 <term>Parameter:</term>
4857 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
4858 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
4863 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
4864 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
4865 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
4866 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
4871 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
4872 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
4873 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via <quote>file:///</quote> URL).
4876 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
4877 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
4878 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
4879 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
4880 it over and over again.
4891 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
4892 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
4893 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
4896 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
4897 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
4898 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
4904 <term>Example usage:</term>
4910 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
4913 Redirect to the BSD devil:
4916 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
4919 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
4922 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
4930 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4932 <title>Summary</title>
4934 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
4935 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
4936 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
4937 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
4938 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
4939 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
4945 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4946 <sect2 id="aliases">
4947 <title>Aliases</title>
4949 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
4950 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
4951 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
4952 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
4954 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
4955 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
4956 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
4957 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
4958 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
4962 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
4963 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
4964 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
4965 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
4969 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
4970 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
4971 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
4972 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
4973 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
4974 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
4975 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
4978 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
4979 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
4980 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
4981 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
4982 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
4984 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
4988 Now let's define some aliases...
4993 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
4995 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
4996 # must be at the top of the actions file!
5000 # These aliases just save typing later:
5001 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5003 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
5004 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5005 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5006 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5008 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5009 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5011 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
5012 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups
5014 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
5016 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
5017 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
5021 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
5022 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
5023 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
5028 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
5029 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
5032 .office.microsoft.com
5033 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5037 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
5041 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5044 # These shops require pop-ups:
5046 {shop -kill-popups -filter{popups}}
5048 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
5052 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
5053 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
5054 in order to function properly.
5058 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5059 <sect2 id="act-examples">
5060 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
5062 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
5063 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
5064 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
5065 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
5066 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
5067 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
5068 file and see how all these pieces come together:
5071 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
5074 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
5078 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
5082 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
5083 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
5084 change or worry about:
5089 ##########################################################################
5090 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5091 ##########################################################################
5094 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
5098 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5099 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5100 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5105 ##########################################################################
5107 ##########################################################################
5110 # These aliases just save typing later:
5111 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5113 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
5114 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5115 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5116 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5118 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5119 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5121 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
5122 shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups</screen>
5126 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
5127 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
5128 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
5129 enable the ones we want.
5133 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
5134 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5135 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs.</link>. Therefore, the
5136 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5137 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5138 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
5139 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
5144 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5145 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
5146 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: A <quote>+</quote>
5147 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5148 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5149 multiple lines with line continuation.
5154 ##########################################################################
5155 # "Defaults" section:
5156 ##########################################################################
5158 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
5159 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
5160 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
5161 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
5162 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
5163 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
5164 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
5165 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
5166 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
5167 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
5168 +<link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> \
5169 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
5170 -<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
5171 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
5172 +<link linkend="FILTER-NIMDA">filter{nimda}</link> \
5173 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
5174 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
5175 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
5176 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
5177 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
5178 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5179 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
5180 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
5181 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
5182 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
5183 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
5184 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
5185 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
5186 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
5187 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5189 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
5193 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
5194 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
5195 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
5196 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
5197 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
5198 want to block in later sections.
5199 We will also want to make exceptions from our general pop-up-killing,
5200 and use our defined aliases for that.
5204 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
5205 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
5206 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
5207 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
5208 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
5209 of actions explicitly:
5214 ##########################################################################
5215 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
5216 ##########################################################################
5218 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
5221 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
5222 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
5226 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
5227 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
5228 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
5237 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5239 .scan.co.uk</screen>
5243 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
5244 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
5245 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
5246 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
5248 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
5249 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
5250 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
5251 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
5252 chosen in the defaults section:
5257 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
5259 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
5262 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
5266 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
5267 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
5268 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
5273 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
5277 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
5278 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
5279 .nytimes.com</screen>
5283 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
5284 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
5285 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
5286 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
5287 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
5288 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5289 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
5290 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
5291 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
5297 ##########################################################################
5299 ##########################################################################
5301 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
5302 # blocked further down this file:
5304 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
5305 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
5309 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
5310 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
5311 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5312 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
5313 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
5314 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
5315 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
5316 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
5317 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
5318 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
5319 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
5320 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
5325 # Known ad generators:
5330 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
5331 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
5332 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
5339 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
5340 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
5341 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
5342 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
5343 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
5344 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
5345 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
5346 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
5347 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
5350 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
5351 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
5352 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
5353 to keep the example short:
5358 ##########################################################################
5359 # Block these fine banners:
5360 ##########################################################################
5361 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
5369 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
5370 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
5372 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
5374 .hitbox.com</screen>
5378 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
5379 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
5380 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
5381 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
5384 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
5385 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
5386 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
5387 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
5388 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
5389 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
5393 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
5394 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
5395 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
5396 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
5397 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
5398 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
5399 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
5400 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
5401 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
5402 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
5407 ##########################################################################
5408 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
5409 ##########################################################################
5413 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
5414 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
5415 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
5416 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
5417 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
5418 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
5426 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
5427 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
5431 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
5432 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
5433 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
5434 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
5435 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
5440 # Don't filter code!
5442 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
5444 .sourceforge.net</screen>
5448 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
5449 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
5454 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
5457 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
5458 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
5459 you'd maybe want to be more specific and have customized rules that
5460 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
5461 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
5462 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
5463 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
5464 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
5465 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
5466 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
5467 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
5468 to install updated versions from time to time.
5472 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
5473 <filename>user.action</filename>:
5477 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
5481 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
5485 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
5486 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
5487 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
5492 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
5495 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5496 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5497 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
5498 shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups
5499 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} # (see below)</screen>
5504 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
5505 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
5506 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
5507 <literal>mercy-for-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
5508 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and
5509 processing of cookies to make them temporary.
5514 { mercy-for-cookies }
5519 .redhat.com</screen>
5523 Your bank needs popups and is allergic to some filter, but you don't
5524 know which, so you disable them all:
5529 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> }
5530 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
5534 While browsing the web with <application>Privoxy</application> you
5535 noticed some ads that sneaked through, but you were too lazy to
5536 report them through our fine and easy <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>
5537 system, so you have added them here:
5542 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
5543 www.a-popular-site.com/some/unobvious/path
5544 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
5548 Note that, assuming the banners in the above example have regular image
5549 extensions (most do),
5550 <literal>+<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link></literal>
5551 need not be specified, since all URLs ending in these extensions will
5552 already have been tagged as images in the relevant section of
5553 <filename>default.action</filename> by now.
5557 Then you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
5558 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
5559 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
5560 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
5561 -- whoa! -- it worked:
5567 .forbes.com</screen>
5571 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
5572 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
5573 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
5574 update-safe config, once and for all:
5579 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
5580 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
5584 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
5585 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
5586 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
5587 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
5588 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
5592 Finally, you might think about how your favourite free websites are
5593 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
5594 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
5595 sites that you feel provide value to you:
5607 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
5608 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
5609 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>
5615 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5619 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5621 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5623 <sect1 id="filter-file">
5624 <title>The Filter File</title>
5627 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
5628 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
5629 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
5630 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
5631 selected through the <literal>
5632 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
5637 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
5638 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
5639 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
5640 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
5641 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
5642 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
5646 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including plain
5647 text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
5648 MIME types). Substitutions are made at the source level, so if
5649 you want to <quote>roll your own</quote> filters, you should be
5650 familiar with HTML syntax.
5654 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
5655 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
5656 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
5657 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
5658 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
5659 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
5660 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
5661 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
5662 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
5663 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
5664 user interface</ulink>.
5668 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
5669 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
5670 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
5671 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
5675 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
5680 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
5684 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
5685 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
5686 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
5687 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
5688 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
5689 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.1.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
5690 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
5691 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
5692 to ungreedy matching.
5696 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
5697 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
5698 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
5700 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
5701 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
5702 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
5703 expressions</ulink> in general.
5704 The below examples might also help to get you started.
5707 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5709 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
5711 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
5712 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
5713 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
5718 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
5722 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
5723 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
5724 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
5725 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
5729 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
5733 Our complete filter now looks like this:
5736 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
5737 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
5741 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
5742 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
5743 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
5749 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
5751 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
5753 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
5757 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
5758 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
5759 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
5760 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
5764 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
5765 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
5766 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
5767 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
5768 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
5772 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
5773 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
5774 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
5775 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
5776 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
5777 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
5778 in the page (and appear in that order).
5782 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
5783 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
5784 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
5785 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
5786 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
5790 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
5791 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
5792 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
5793 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
5794 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
5795 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
5796 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
5797 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
5798 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
5799 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
5800 substitution is global.
5804 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
5805 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
5806 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
5807 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
5808 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
5812 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
5813 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
5814 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
5815 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
5816 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
5817 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
5818 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
5819 Business!"</literal>.
5823 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
5824 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
5825 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
5826 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
5827 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
5828 information anymore.
5832 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
5833 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
5838 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
5840 s/window\.status\s*=\s*['"].*?['"]/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
5844 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
5845 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
5846 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
5847 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
5848 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
5849 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>.
5853 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
5854 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
5855 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
5856 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
5857 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
5858 you move your mouse over links.
5863 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
5865 s/(<body .*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
5870 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
5871 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
5872 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
5873 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
5874 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
5875 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
5880 The last example is from the fun department:
5885 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
5887 # Spice the daily news:
5889 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
5893 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
5894 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
5895 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
5896 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being messed, while
5897 still replacing the word everywhere else.
5902 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
5904 s* industry[ -]leading \
5906 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
5907 | high[ -]performance \
5908 | solutions[ -]based \
5912 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
5917 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
5918 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
5927 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5931 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5933 <sect1 id="templates">
5934 <title>Templates</title>
5936 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
5937 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
5938 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
5939 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
5941 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
5942 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
5943 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
5948 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
5949 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On unixish platforms,
5951 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
5955 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
5956 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
5957 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
5958 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
5959 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
5960 ignored when the templates are filled in.
5964 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
5965 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
5966 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
5967 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
5968 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
5972 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
5973 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
5974 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
5975 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
5976 in in an alpha or beta development stage:
5981 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
5983 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
5985 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
5989 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
5990 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
5991 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
5995 <screen><!-- --></screen>
5999 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
6000 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
6005 All templates refer to a style located at
6006 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
6007 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
6008 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
6009 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
6014 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6018 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6020 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
6023 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
6025 <!-- end boilerplate -->
6029 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6032 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6033 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
6035 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
6037 <!-- end copyright -->
6039 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6040 <sect2><title>License</title>
6041 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
6043 <!-- end copyright -->
6045 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6048 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6050 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
6051 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
6053 <!-- end history -->
6056 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
6057 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
6059 <!-- end authors -->
6064 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6067 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6068 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
6069 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
6071 <!-- end seealso -->
6076 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6077 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
6080 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6082 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
6084 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
6085 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
6086 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
6087 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
6088 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
6092 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
6093 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
6094 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
6095 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
6099 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
6100 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
6101 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
6102 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
6103 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
6104 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
6105 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
6106 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
6110 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
6111 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
6112 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
6113 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
6114 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
6115 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
6116 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
6117 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
6121 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
6122 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
6123 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
6124 and then some examples:
6129 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
6130 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
6132 </simplelist></para>
6136 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
6139 </simplelist></para>
6143 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
6146 </simplelist></para>
6150 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
6153 </simplelist></para>
6157 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
6158 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
6159 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
6160 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
6161 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
6162 meta-character meaning of any single character).
6164 </simplelist></para>
6168 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
6169 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
6170 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
6171 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
6173 </simplelist></para>
6177 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
6178 or multiple sub-expressions.
6180 </simplelist></para>
6184 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
6185 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
6186 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
6187 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
6188 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
6189 example</quote>, and nothing else.
6191 </simplelist></para>
6194 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
6195 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
6196 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
6197 be more illuminating:
6201 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
6202 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
6203 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
6204 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
6205 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
6206 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
6207 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
6208 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
6209 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
6210 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
6211 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
6212 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
6213 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
6214 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
6219 A now something a little more complex:
6223 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
6224 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
6225 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
6226 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
6227 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
6228 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
6229 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
6234 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
6235 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
6236 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
6237 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
6238 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
6239 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
6240 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
6241 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
6242 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
6243 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
6244 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
6245 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
6246 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
6247 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
6248 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
6249 changing our regular expression to:
6250 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
6255 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
6256 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
6257 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
6258 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
6259 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
6260 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
6261 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
6262 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
6263 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
6264 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
6265 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
6266 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
6267 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
6268 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
6269 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
6270 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
6271 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
6272 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
6273 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
6274 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
6275 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
6276 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
6277 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
6278 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
6279 in the expression anywhere).
6283 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
6284 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
6285 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
6286 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
6287 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
6292 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
6293 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
6297 For information on regular expression based substititions and their applications
6298 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
6303 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6308 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
6311 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
6312 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
6313 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
6314 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
6315 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
6316 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
6317 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
6323 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
6324 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
6325 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
6326 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
6339 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
6343 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
6344 doesn't provide a fallback to a real page, in case the request is not
6345 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
6351 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
6352 editing of actions files:
6356 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
6363 Show the source code version numbers:
6367 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
6374 Show the browser's request headers:
6378 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
6385 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
6389 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
6396 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
6397 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
6401 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
6405 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
6409 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
6414 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
6423 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
6427 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
6428 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
6430 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
6431 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
6432 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
6433 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
6434 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
6435 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
6438 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
6439 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
6440 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
6441 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
6442 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
6443 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
6452 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>
6459 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>
6466 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)
6473 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>
6479 <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>
6487 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
6488 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
6489 have more information about bookmarklets.
6498 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6500 <title>Chain of Events</title>
6502 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
6503 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
6510 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
6511 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
6512 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
6518 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
6519 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
6524 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
6526 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
6527 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
6528 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
6529 is then checked and if it does not match, an
6530 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
6531 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
6532 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
6533 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
6538 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
6539 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
6544 If the URL pattern matches the <link
6545 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
6546 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
6551 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
6552 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
6553 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
6554 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
6560 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
6566 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
6567 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
6568 filtered as deterimed by the
6569 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
6570 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
6571 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
6577 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
6578 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
6579 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
6584 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
6586 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
6587 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
6588 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
6589 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
6590 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
6591 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
6592 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
6593 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
6594 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
6597 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
6599 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
6600 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
6601 to the client browser as it becomes available.
6606 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
6607 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
6608 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
6609 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
6610 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
6611 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
6621 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6622 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
6623 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
6626 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
6627 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
6628 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
6629 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
6630 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
6631 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
6632 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
6633 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
6634 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
6639 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
6640 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
6641 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
6642 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!).
6646 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
6647 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
6648 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
6649 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
6653 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
6654 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
6655 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
6656 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
6657 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
6658 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
6659 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
6660 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
6661 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
6662 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
6663 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
6664 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
6665 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
6670 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
6671 and look at it one section at a time:
6676 Matches for http://google.com:
6678 --- File standard ---
6679 (no matches in this file)
6681 --- File default ---
6683 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs{last} -downgrade-http-version +fast-redirects
6684 -filter{popups} -filter{fun} -filter{shockwave-flash} -filter{crude-parental}
6685 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{content-cookies}
6686 +filter{webbugs} +filter{refresh-tags} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
6687 +hide-forwarded-for-headers +hide-from-header{block} +hide-referer{forge}
6688 -hide-user-agent -handle-as-image +set-image-blocker{pattern} -limit-connect
6689 +prevent-compression +session-cookies-only -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6690 -crunch-incoming-cookies -kill-popups -send-vanilla-wafer -send-wafer }
6693 { -session-cookies-only }
6700 (no matches in this file)
6705 This tells us how we have defined our
6706 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
6707 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
6708 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
6709 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
6710 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
6711 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
6712 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
6713 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
6714 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
6715 -- <quote>/</quote>.
6719 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
6720 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
6721 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
6722 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
6724 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
6725 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
6726 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
6728 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
6729 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
6730 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
6731 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
6732 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
6733 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
6734 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
6739 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
6743 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
6744 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
6745 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
6753 -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs{last} -downgrade-http-version -fast-redirects
6754 -filter{popups} -filter{fun} -filter{shockwave-flash} -filter{crude-parental}
6755 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{content-cookies}
6756 +filter{webbugs} +filter{refresh-tags} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
6757 +hide-forwarded-for-headers +hide-from-header{block} +hide-referer{forge}
6758 -hide-user-agent -handle-as-image +set-image-blocker{pattern} -limit-connect
6759 +prevent-compression -session-cookies-only -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6760 -crunch-incoming-cookies -kill-popups -send-vanilla-wafer -send-wafer
6765 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
6766 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
6770 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
6776 { +block +handle-as-image }
6779 { +block +handle-as-image }
6782 { +block +handle-as-image }
6788 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
6789 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
6790 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
6791 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
6792 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
6793 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
6798 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
6799 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
6800 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
6801 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
6802 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
6803 is done here -- as both a <link
6804 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
6805 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
6807 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
6808 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
6813 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
6814 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
6820 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
6822 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade-http-version +fast-redirects
6823 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{kill-popups}
6824 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
6825 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded-for-headers +hide-from-header{block}
6826 +hide-referer{forge} -hide-user-agent -handle-as-image +set-image-blocker{blank}
6827 +prevent-compression +session-cookies-only -crunch-incoming-cookies
6828 -crunch-outgoing-cookies +kill-popups -send-vanilla-wafer -send-wafer }
6831 { +block +handle-as-image }
6837 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
6838 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
6839 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
6840 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
6841 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
6853 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
6854 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
6858 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
6865 { +block +handle-as-image }
6871 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
6872 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
6873 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
6874 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
6875 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
6876 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
6884 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6892 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
6893 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
6894 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
6907 This would probably be most appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>,
6908 for local site exceptions.
6912 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
6913 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
6914 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
6915 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
6924 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
6925 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
6926 Public License as published by the Free Software
6927 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
6928 your option) any later version.
6930 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
6931 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
6932 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
6933 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
6934 License for more details.
6936 The GNU General Public License should be included with
6937 this file. If not, you can view it at
6938 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
6939 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
6940 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
6942 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
6943 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
6944 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
6946 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
6947 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
6949 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
6950 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
6952 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
6953 Extended and further commented the example actions files
6955 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
6956 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
6959 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
6962 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
6963 Restored alphabetical order of actions
6965 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
6966 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
6968 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
6969 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
6971 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
6972 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
6973 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
6975 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
6976 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
6977 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
6978 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
6980 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
6981 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
6983 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
6986 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
6987 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
6988 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
6990 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
6991 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
6993 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
6994 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
6995 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
6997 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
6998 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
7000 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
7001 more structure in starting section
7003 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
7004 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
7005 will probably break links elsewhere :(
7007 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
7008 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
7009 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
7011 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
7012 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
7013 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
7015 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
7016 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
7018 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
7019 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
7020 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
7022 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
7023 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
7024 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
7026 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
7027 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
7029 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
7030 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
7032 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
7033 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
7035 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
7036 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
7038 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
7039 Updated OSX installation section
7040 Added a few English tweaks here an there
7042 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
7043 Re-write actions section.
7045 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
7046 Fix ugly typo (mine).
7048 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
7049 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
7051 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
7052 Added RPM install detail
7054 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
7057 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
7058 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
7060 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
7061 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
7063 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
7064 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
7066 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
7069 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
7070 Proofreading, part one
7072 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
7073 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
7074 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
7076 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
7077 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
7079 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
7080 Add small section on submitting actions.
7082 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
7085 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
7086 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
7088 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
7089 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
7091 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
7094 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
7095 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
7096 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
7097 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
7098 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
7100 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
7101 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
7103 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
7104 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
7106 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
7107 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
7108 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
7109 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
7110 eventually be set by Makefile.
7111 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
7113 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
7114 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
7116 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
7117 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
7119 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
7120 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
7122 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
7123 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
7124 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
7125 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
7127 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
7130 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
7131 Added more to Anatomy section.
7133 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
7134 Touch up intro for new name.
7136 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
7137 we have a new homepage!
7139 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
7140 A few minor catch ups with name change.
7142 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
7143 configure needs to be generated.
7145 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
7146 we are too lazy to make a block-built
7147 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
7149 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
7150 name change related issue.
7152 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
7153 name change. changed filenames.
7155 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
7158 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
7159 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
7160 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
7161 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
7162 comments and remarks to history untouched.
7164 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
7167 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
7168 New section in Appendix.
7170 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
7171 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
7173 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
7174 correct feedback channels
7176 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
7177 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
7179 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
7182 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
7183 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
7185 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
7186 Added imageblock{pattern}.
7188 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
7191 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
7192 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
7194 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
7195 provide correct feedback channels
7197 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
7198 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
7200 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
7201 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
7203 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
7204 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
7206 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
7207 Add new - - user option.
7209 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
7210 Added section on command line options.
7212 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
7213 Changed default port to 8118
7215 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
7216 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
7218 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
7219 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
7220 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
7223 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
7226 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
7227 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
7229 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
7230 Update OS/2 build section
7232 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
7233 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
7234 will work - no other changes are needed.
7236 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
7237 Added a very short section on Templates
7239 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
7240 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
7242 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
7243 Touch ups for *.action files.
7245 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
7248 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
7249 Updates for recent changes.
7251 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
7252 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
7254 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
7255 Correct 2 minor errors
7257 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
7258 *** empty log message ***
7260 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
7261 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
7263 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
7264 wrong url in documentation
7266 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
7267 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
7269 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
7272 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
7275 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
7278 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
7279 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
7281 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
7282 Some additions, and re-arranging.
7284 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
7287 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
7288 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
7290 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
7293 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
7294 source files for junkbuster documentation
7296 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
7297 first proposal of a structure.
7299 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
7300 docs should have an author.
7302 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
7303 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob