1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN">
3 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
7 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
9 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa Exp $
11 Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
12 Privoxy team. http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net
14 Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
15 by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
16 Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
20 Sat 03/02/02 04:53:47 PM
22 This should be ready for BETA release.
24 Hal Burgiss <hal@foobox.net>
29 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
31 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa Exp $</pubdate>
36 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
43 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
44 <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application> is a
45 web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy,
46 filtering web page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and
47 removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet
48 Junk. <application>Privoxy</application> has a very flexible configuration
49 and can be customized to suit individual needs and
50 tastes. <application>Privoxy</application> has application for both
51 stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.
54 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/</ulink>.
58 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
65 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
67 <sect1 id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
69 <application>Privoxy</application> is a web proxy with advanced
70 filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering and modifying web
71 page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads,
72 banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet Junk.
73 <application>Privoxy</application> has a very flexible configuration and
74 can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. <application>Privoxy</application> has application for both stand-alone systems and
79 This documentation is included with the current BETA version of
80 <application>Privoxy</application> and is mostly complete at this
81 point. The most up to date reference for the time being is still the comments
82 in the source files and in the individual configuration files. Development
83 of version 3.0 is currently nearing completion, and includes many significant
84 changes and enhancements over earlier versions. The target release date for
85 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)
89 Since this is a BETA version, not all new features are well tested. This
90 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
91 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
96 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
98 <title>New Features</title>
100 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
101 feature of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
102 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features, some of them
103 currently under development:
107 The section is in both user-manual and faq. Please keep in sync.
114 Integrated browser based configuration and control utility (<ulink
115 url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>). Browser-based tracing of rule
122 Modularized configuration that will allow for system wide settings, and
123 individual user settings. (not implemented yet, probably a 3.1 feature)
129 Blocking of annoying pop-up browser windows.
135 HTTP/1.1 compliant (most, but not all 1.1 features are supported).
141 Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files, and
142 generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
155 Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size,
156 invisible <quote>web-bugs</quote>, JavaScript, pop-ups, status bar abuse,
163 Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
170 Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
176 Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
182 User-customizable HTML templates (e.g. 404 error page).
188 Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
194 Builds from source on most UNIX-like systems. Packages available for: Linux
195 (RedHat, SuSE, or Debian), Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac OSX, OS/2, HP-UX 11 and AmigaOS.
202 In addition, the configuration is much more powerful and versatile over-all.
213 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
216 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
217 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
219 <application>Privoxy</application> is available as raw source code, or
220 pre-compiled binaries. See the <ulink
221 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Home Page</ulink>
222 for binaries and current release info. <application>Privoxy</application>
223 is also available via <ulink
224 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ijbswa/current/">CVS</ulink>.
225 This is the recommended approach at this time. But please be aware that CVS
226 is constantly changing, and it may break in mysterious ways.
229 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
230 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Source</title>
232 For gzipped tar archives, unpack the source:
237 tar xzvf ijb_source_* [.tgz or .tar.gz]
238 cd ijb_source_2.9.11_beta
243 For retrieving the current CVS sources, you'll need the CVS
244 package installed first. To download CVS source:
249 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
250 cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co current
256 This will create a directory named <filename>current/</filename>, which will
257 contain the source tree.
261 Then, in either case, to build from tarball/CVS source:
266 ./configure (--help to see options)
267 make (the make from gnu, gmake for *BSD)
269 make -n install (to see where all the files will go)
270 make install (to really install)
275 For Redhat and SuSE Linux RPM packages, see below.
281 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
282 <sect2 id="installation-rh"><title>Red Hat</title>
284 To build Redhat RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
297 This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
301 /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
304 /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/privoxy-2.9.11-1.src.rpm
308 To install, of course:
313 rpm -Uvv /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
318 This will place the <application>Privoxy</application> configuration
319 files in <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename>, and log files in
320 <filename>/var/log/privoxy/</filename>.
325 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
326 <sect2 id="installation-suse"><title>SuSE</title>
328 To build SuSE RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
341 This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
345 /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
348 /usr/src/packages/SRPMS/privoxy-2.9.11-1.src.rpm
352 To install, of course:
357 rpm -Uvv /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
362 This will place the <application>Privoxy</application> configuration
363 files in <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename>, and log files in
364 <filename>/var/log/privoxy/</filename>.
370 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
371 <sect2 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
378 <application>Privoxy</application> is packaged in a WarpIN self-
379 installing archive. The self-installing program will be named depending
380 on the release version, something like:
381 <filename>ijbos2_setup_1.2.3.exe</filename>. In order to install it, simply
382 run this executable or double-click on its icon and follow the WarpIN
383 installation panels. A shadow of the <application>Privoxy</application>
384 executable will be placed in your startup folder so it will start
385 automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
389 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
390 into will contain all of the configuration files.
394 If you would like to build binary images on OS/2 yourself, you will need
395 a few Unix-like tools: autoconf, autoheader and sh. These tools will be
396 used to create the required config.h file, which is not part of the
397 source distribution because it differs based on platform. You will also
399 The distribution has been created using IBM VisualAge compilers, but you
400 can use any compiler you like. GCC/EMX has the disadvantage of needing
401 to be single-threaded due to a limitation of EMX's implementation of the
402 select() socket call.
406 In addition to needing the source code distribution as outlined earlier,
407 you will want to extract the <filename>os2seutp</filename> directory from CVS:
409 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
410 cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co os2setup
412 This will create a directory named os2setup/, which will contain the
413 <filename>Makefile.vac</filename> makefile and <filename>os2build.cmd</filename>
414 which is used to completely create the binary distribution. The sequence
415 of events for building the executable for yourself goes something like this:
422 nmake -f Makefile.vac
424 You will see this sequence laid out in <filename>os2build.cmd</filename>.
430 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
431 <sect2 id="installation-win"><title>Windows</title>
432 <para>Click-click. (I need help on this. Not a clue here. Also for
433 configuration section below. HB.)
437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
438 <sect2 id="installation-other"><title>Other</title>
440 Some quick notes on other Operating Systems.
444 For FreeBSD (and other *BSDs?), the build will require <command>gmake</command>
445 instead of the included <command>make</command>. <command>gmake</command> is
446 available from <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org">http://www.gnu.org</ulink>.
447 The rest should be the same as above for Linux/Unix.
454 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
457 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
458 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
460 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is kept
461 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
462 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
463 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
468 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
471 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
473 <application>Privoxy</application> can be reached by the special
474 URL <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (or alternately
475 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/</ulink>),
476 which is an internal page. You will see the following section:
483 Please choose from the following options:
485 * Show information about the current configuration
486 * Show the source code version numbers
487 * Show the client's request headers.
488 * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
489 * Toggle Privoxy on or off
490 * Edit the actions list
496 This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for the
497 <quote>actions list</quote>, which is where much of the ad, banner, cookie,
498 and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
499 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
500 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
501 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
502 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically detect any changes
507 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
508 have problems with your current actions and filters, or just to test if
509 a site misbehaves, whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
510 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
511 to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled.
517 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
522 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
525 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
527 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
528 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
529 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
530 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. The name and number of
531 configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is subject to
532 change as development progresses.
536 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though possibly
537 aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are only three
538 default configuration files (this will change in time):
546 The main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>
547 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
554 The <filename>default.action</filename> file is used to define various
555 <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners, pop-ups, access
556 restrictions, banners and cookies. There is a CGI based editor for this
557 file that can be accessed via <ulink
558 url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>. (Other actions
559 files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
560 and blocking, e.g. <filename>ijb-basic.action</filename>.)
566 The <filename>default.filter</filename> file can be used to re-write the raw
567 page content, including viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript,
568 and whatever else lurks on any given web page.
576 <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>default.filter</filename>
577 can use Perl style regular expressions for maximum flexibility. All files use
578 the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a comment. Such
579 lines are not processed by <application>Privoxy</application>. After
580 making any changes, there is no need to restart
581 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
582 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> should detect such changes
587 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
588 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
589 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
590 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
595 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
598 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
600 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
601 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
602 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
603 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
611 <emphasis>blockfile blocklist.ini</emphasis>
618 Indicates that the blockfile is named <quote>blocklist.ini</quote>. (A
619 default installation does not use this.)
623 A <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> indicates a comment. Any part of a
624 line following a <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> is ignored, except if
625 the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> is preceded by a
626 <quote><literal>\</literal></quote>.
630 Thus, by placing a <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> at the start of an
631 existing configuration line, you can make it a comment and it will be treated
632 as if it weren't there. This is called <quote>commenting out</quote> an
633 option and can be useful to turn off features: If you comment out the
634 <quote>logfile</quote> line, <application>Privoxy</application> will not
635 log to a file at all. Watch for the <quote>default:</quote> section in each
636 explanation to see what happens if the option is left unset (or commented
641 Long lines can be continued on the next line by using a
642 <quote><literal>\</literal></quote> as the very last character.
646 There are various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> behavior
651 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
654 <title>Defining Other Configuration Files</title>
657 <application>Privoxy</application> can use a number of other files to tell it
658 what ads to block, what cookies to accept, etc. This section of the
659 configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application> where to find
660 all those other files.
664 On <application>Windows</application> and <application>AmigaOS</application>,
665 <application>Privoxy</application> looks for these files in the same
666 directory as the executable. On Unix and OS/2,
667 <application>Privoxy</application> looks for these files in the current
668 working directory. In either case, an absolute path name can be used to
673 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
674 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
675 For now, only <filename>confdir/templates</filename> is used for storing HTML
676 templates for CGI results.
680 The location of the configuration files:
687 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis> # No trailing /, please.
694 The directory where all logging (i.e. <filename>logfile</filename> and
695 <filename>jarfile</filename>) takes place. No trailing
696 <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please:
703 <emphasis>logdir /var/log/privoxy</emphasis>
710 Note that all file specifications below are relative to
711 the above two directories!
715 The <quote>default.action</quote> file contains patterns to specify the
716 actions to apply to requests for each site. Default: Cookies to and from all
717 destinations are kept only during the current browser session (i.e. they are
718 not saved to disk). Pop-ups are disabled for all sites. All sites are
719 filtered through selected sections of <quote>default.filter</quote>. No sites
720 are blocked. <application>Privoxy</application> displays a checkboard type
721 pattern for filtered ads and other images. The syntax of this file is
722 explained in detail <link linkend="actionsfile">below</link>. Other
723 <quote>actions</quote> files are included, and you are free to use any of
724 them. They have varying degrees of aggressiveness.
731 <emphasis>actionsfile default.action</emphasis>
738 The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
739 that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
740 changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
741 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
742 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
743 it appears on a Web page. Default: whatever the developers are playing with
748 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to slow down
749 page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has passed
750 the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way since
751 the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more noticeable
752 on slower connections.
760 <emphasis>filterfile default.filter</emphasis>
767 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The logfile
768 can be useful for tracking down a problem with
769 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
770 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
774 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
775 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
776 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Redhat, a <command>logrotate</command>
777 script has been included.
781 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
782 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
783 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
784 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
788 Default: Log to the a file named <filename>logfile</filename>.
789 Comment out to disable logging.
796 <emphasis>logfile logfile</emphasis>
803 The <quote>jarfile</quote> defines where
804 <application>Privoxy</application> stores the cookies it intercepts. Note
805 that if you use a <quote>jarfile</quote>, it may grow quite large. Default:
806 Don't store intercepted cookies.
813 <emphasis>#jarfile jarfile</emphasis>
820 If you specify a <quote>trustfile</quote>,
821 <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow access to sites that
822 are named in the trustfile. You can also mark sites as trusted referrers,
823 with the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link
824 from a trusted referrer was used. The link target will then be added to the
825 <quote>trustfile</quote>. This is a very restrictive feature that typical
826 users most probably want to leave disabled. Default: Disabled, don't use the
834 <emphasis>#trustfile trust</emphasis>
841 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
842 documentation about your blocking policy and to specify the URL(s) here. They
843 will appear on the page that your users receive when they try to access
844 untrusted content. Use multiple times for multiple URLs. Default: Don't
845 display links on the <quote>untrusted</quote> info page.
852 <emphasis>trust-info-url http://www.your-site.com/why_we_block.html</emphasis>
853 <emphasis>trust-info-url http://www.your-site.com/what_we_allow.html</emphasis>
861 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
865 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
868 <title>Other Configuration Options</title>
871 This part of the configuration file contains options that control how
872 <application>Privoxy</application> operates.
876 <quote>Admin-address</quote> should be set to the email address of the proxy
877 administrator. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages. Default:
885 <emphasis>#admin-address fill@me.in.please</emphasis>
892 <quote>Proxy-info-url</quote> can be set to a URL that contains more info
893 about this <application>Privoxy</application> installation, it's
894 configuration and policies. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages
895 and its use is highly recommended in multi-user installations, since your
896 users will want to know why certain content is blocked or modified. Default:
897 Don't show a link to on-line documentation.
904 <emphasis>proxy-info-url http://www.your-site.com/proxy.html</emphasis>
911 <quote>Listen-address</quote> specifies the address and port where
912 <application>Privoxy</application> will listen for connections from your
913 Web browser. The default is to listen on the localhost port 8118, and
914 this is suitable for most users. (In your web browser, under proxy
915 configuration, list the proxy server as <quote>localhost</quote> and the
916 port as <quote>8118</quote>).
920 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
921 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
922 will need to override the default. The syntax is
923 <quote>listen-address [<ip-address>]:<port></quote>. If you leave
924 out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will bind to all
925 interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
926 Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (acl's) (see
927 <quote>aclfile</quote> above), or a firewall.
931 For example, suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
932 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
933 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
934 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
941 <emphasis>listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118</emphasis>
948 If you want it to listen on all addresses (including the outside
956 <emphasis>listen-address :8118</emphasis>
963 If you do this, consider using ACLs (see <quote>aclfile</quote> above). Note:
964 you will need to point your browser(s) to the address and port that you have
965 configured here. Default: localhost:8118 (127.0.0.1:8118).
969 The debug option sets the level of debugging information to log in the
970 logfile (and to the console in the Windows version). A debug level of 1 is
971 informative because it will show you each request as it happens. Higher
972 levels of debug are probably only of interest to developers.
979 debug 1 # GPC = show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
980 debug 2 # CONN = show each connection status
981 debug 4 # IO = show I/O status
982 debug 8 # HDR = show header parsing
983 debug 16 # LOG = log all data into the logfile
984 debug 32 # FRC = debug force feature
985 debug 64 # REF = debug regular expression filter
986 debug 128 # = debug fast redirects
987 debug 256 # = debug GIF de-animation
988 debug 512 # CLF = Common Log Format
989 debug 1024 # = debug kill pop-ups
990 debug 4096 # INFO = Startup banner and warnings.
991 debug 8192 # ERROR = Non-fatal errors
998 It is <emphasis>highly recommended</emphasis> that you enable ERROR
999 reporting (debug 8192), at least until v3.0 is released.
1003 The reporting of FATAL errors (i.e. ones which crash
1004 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1008 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1009 512</quote> ONLY, do not enable anything else.
1013 Multiple <quote>debug</quote> directives, are OK - they're logical-OR'd
1021 <emphasis>debug 15 # same as setting the first 4 listed above</emphasis>
1035 <emphasis>debug 1 # URLs</emphasis>
1036 <emphasis>debug 4096 # Info</emphasis>
1037 <emphasis>debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*</emphasis>
1044 <application>Privoxy</application> normally uses
1045 <quote>multi-threading</quote>, a software technique that permits it to
1046 handle many different requests simultaneously. In some cases you may wish to
1047 disable this -- particularly if you're trying to debug a problem. The
1048 <quote>single-threaded</quote> option forces
1049 <application>Privoxy</application> to handle requests sequentially.
1050 Default: Multi-threaded mode.
1057 <emphasis>#single-threaded</emphasis>
1064 <quote>toggle</quote> allows you to temporarily disable all
1065 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering. Just set <quote>toggle
1070 The Windows version of <application>Privoxy</application> puts an icon in
1071 the system tray, which also allows you to change this option. If you
1072 right-click on that icon (or select the <quote>Options</quote> menu), one
1073 choice is <quote>Enable</quote>. Clicking on enable toggles
1074 <application>Privoxy</application> on and off. This is useful if you want
1075 to temporarily disable <application>Privoxy</application>, e.g., to access
1076 a site that requires cookies which you would otherwise have blocked. This can also
1077 be toggled via a web browser at the <application>Privoxy</application>
1078 internal address of <ulink url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink> on
1083 <quote>toggle 1</quote> means <application>Privoxy</application> runs
1084 normally, <quote>toggle 0</quote> means that
1085 <application>Privoxy</application> becomes a non-anonymizing non-blocking
1086 proxy. Default: 1 (on).
1093 <emphasis>toggle 1</emphasis>
1100 For content filtering, i.e. the <quote>+filter</quote> and
1101 <quote>+deanimate-gif</quote> actions, it is necessary that
1102 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
1103 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
1104 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust. With nasty consequences.
1108 The <application>buffer-limit</application> option lets you set the maximum
1109 size in Kbytes that each buffer may use. When the documents buffer exceeds
1110 this size, it is flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
1111 filter the rest of it is made. Remember that there may multiple threads
1112 running, which might require increasing the <quote>buffer-limit</quote>
1113 Kbytes <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled
1114 <quote>single-threaded</quote> above.
1121 <emphasis>buffer-limit 4069</emphasis>
1128 To enable the web-based <filename>default.action</filename> file editor set
1129 <application>enable-edit-actions</application> to 1, or 0 to disable. Note
1130 that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1131 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect. This
1132 internal page can be reached at <ulink
1133 url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>.
1137 Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy
1138 can edit the actions file, and their changes will affect all users.
1139 For shared proxies, you probably want to disable this. Default: enabled.
1146 <emphasis>enable-edit-actions 1</emphasis>
1153 Allow <application>Privoxy</application> to be toggled on and off
1154 remotely, using your web browser. Set <quote>enable-remote-toggle</quote>to
1155 1 to enable, and 0 to disable. Note that you must have compiled
1156 <application>Privoxy</application> with support for this feature,
1157 otherwise this option has no effect.
1161 Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can toggle
1162 it on or off (see <ulink url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>), and
1163 their changes will affect all users. For shared proxies, you probably want to
1164 disable this. Default: enabled.
1171 <emphasis>enable-remote-toggle 1</emphasis>
1179 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1185 <title>Access Control List (ACL)</title>
1187 Access controls are included at the request of some ISPs and systems
1188 administrators, and are not usually needed by individual users. Please note
1189 the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
1190 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
1195 If no access settings are specified, the proxy talks to anyone that
1196 connects. If any access settings file are specified, then the proxy
1197 talks only to IP addresses permitted somewhere in this file and not
1198 denied later in this file.
1202 Summary -- if using an ACL:
1207 Client must have permission to receive service.
1212 LAST match in ACL wins.
1217 Default behavior is to deny service.
1222 The syntax for an entry in the Access Control List is:
1229 ACTION SRC_ADDR[/SRC_MASKLEN] [ DST_ADDR[/DST_MASKLEN] ]
1236 Where the individual fields are:
1243 <emphasis>ACTION</emphasis> = <quote>permit-access</quote> or <quote>deny-access</quote>
1245 <emphasis>SRC_ADDR</emphasis> = client hostname or dotted IP address
1246 <emphasis>SRC_MASKLEN</emphasis> = number of bits in the subnet mask for the source
1248 <emphasis>DST_ADDR</emphasis> = server or forwarder hostname or dotted IP address
1249 <emphasis>DST_MASKLEN</emphasis> = number of bits in the subnet mask for the target
1257 The field separator (FS) is whitespace (space or tab).
1261 IMPORTANT NOTE: If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a
1262 forwarder (see below) or a gateway for a particular destination URL, the
1263 <literal>DST_ADDR</literal> that is examined is the address of the forwarder
1264 or the gateway and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address of the ultimate
1265 target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1266 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the address of the
1267 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1271 Here are a few examples to show how the ACL features work:
1275 <quote>localhost</quote> is OK -- no DST_ADDR implies that
1276 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1283 <emphasis>permit-access localhost</emphasis>
1290 A silly example to illustrate permitting any host on the class-C subnet with
1291 <application>Privoxy</application> to go anywhere:
1298 <emphasis>permit-access www.privoxy.com/24</emphasis>
1305 Except deny one particular IP address from using it at all:
1312 <emphasis>deny-access ident.privoxy.com</emphasis>
1319 You can also specify an explicit network address and subnet mask.
1320 Explicit addresses do not have to be resolved to be used.
1327 <emphasis>permit-access 207.153.200.0/24</emphasis>
1334 A subnet mask of 0 matches anything, so the next line permits everyone.
1341 <emphasis>permit-access 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis>
1348 Note, you <emphasis>cannot</emphasis> say:
1355 <emphasis>permit-access .org</emphasis>
1362 to allow all *.org domains. Every IP address listed must resolve fully.
1366 An ISP may want to provide a <application>Privoxy</application> that is
1367 accessible by <quote>the world</quote> and yet restrict use of some of their
1368 private content to hosts on its internal network (i.e. its own subscribers).
1369 Say, for instance the ISP owns the Class-B IP address block 123.124.0.0 (a 16
1370 bit netmask). This is how they could do it:
1377 <emphasis>permit-access 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis> # other clients can go anywhere
1378 # with the following exceptions:
1380 <emphasis>deny-access</emphasis> 0.0.0.0/0 123.124.0.0/16 # block all external requests for
1381 # sites on the ISP's network
1383 <emphasis>permit 0.0.0.0/0 www.my_isp.com</emphasis> # except for the ISP's main
1386 <emphasis>permit 123.124.0.0/16 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis> # the ISP's clients can go
1394 Note that if some hostnames are listed with multiple IP addresses,
1395 the primary value returned by DNS (via gethostbyname()) is used. Default:
1396 Anyone can access the proxy.
1401 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1404 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1407 <title>Forwarding</title>
1410 This feature allows chaining of HTTP requests via multiple proxies.
1411 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
1412 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
1413 to a special purpose filtering proxy such as lpwa.com. Or to use
1414 a caching proxy to speed up browsing.
1418 It can also be used in an environment with multiple networks to route
1419 requests via multiple gateways allowing transparent access to multiple
1420 networks without having to modify browser configurations.
1424 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
1425 SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A. The difference is that SOCKS 4A will resolve the target
1426 hostname using DNS on the SOCKS server, not our local DNS client.
1430 The syntax of each line is:
1437 <emphasis>forward target_domain[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
1438 <emphasis>forward-socks4 target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
1439 <emphasis>forward-socks4a target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
1446 If http_proxy_host is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not forwarded to a
1447 HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
1451 Lines are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
1455 There is an implicit line equivalent to the following, which specifies that
1456 anything not finding a match on the list is to go out without forwarding
1457 or gateway protocol, like so:
1464 <emphasis>forward .* . </emphasis># implicit
1471 In the following common configuration, everything goes to Lucent's LPWA,
1472 except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
1479 <emphasis>forward .* lpwa.com:8000</emphasis>
1480 <emphasis>forward :443 .</emphasis>
1488 See the FAQ for instructions on how to automate the login procedure for LPWA.
1490 Some users have reported difficulties related to LPWA's use of
1491 <quote>.</quote> as the last element of the domain, and have said that this
1492 can be fixed with this:
1499 <emphasis>forward lpwa. lpwa.com:8000</emphasis>
1506 (NOTE: the syntax for specifying target_domain has changed since the
1507 previous paragraph was written -- it will not work now. More information
1512 In this fictitious example, everything goes via an ISP's caching proxy,
1513 except requests to that ISP:
1520 <emphasis>forward .* caching.myisp.net:8000</emphasis>
1521 <emphasis>forward myisp.net .</emphasis>
1528 For the @home network, we're told the forwarding configuration is this:
1536 <emphasis>forward .* proxy:8080</emphasis>
1543 Also, we're told they insist on getting cookies and JavaScript, so you should
1544 allow cookies from home.com. We consider JavaScript a potential security risk.
1545 Java need not be enabled.
1549 In this example direct connections are made to all <quote>internal</quote>
1550 domains, but everything else goes through Lucent's LPWA by way of the
1551 company's SOCKS gateway to the Internet.
1558 <emphasis>forward-socks4 .* lpwa.com:8000 firewall.my_company.com:1080</emphasis>
1559 <emphasis>forward my_company.com .</emphasis>
1566 This is how you could set up a site that always uses SOCKS but no forwarders:
1573 <emphasis>forward-socks4a .* . firewall.my_company.com:1080</emphasis>
1580 An advanced example for network administrators:
1584 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content to
1585 their subscribers, you can configure forwarding to pass requests to the
1586 specific host that's connected to that ISP so that everybody can see all
1587 of the content on all of the ISPs.
1591 This is a bit tricky, but here's an example:
1596 host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.com. And host-b has a PPP connection to
1597 isp-b.com. host-a can run a <application>Privoxy</application> proxy with
1598 forwarding like this:
1605 <emphasis>forward .* .</emphasis>
1606 <emphasis>forward isp-b.com host-b:8118</emphasis>
1613 host-b can run a <application>Privoxy</application> proxy with forwarding
1621 <emphasis>forward .* .</emphasis>
1622 <emphasis>forward isp-a.com host-a:8118</emphasis>
1629 Now, <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> on the Internet (including users on host-a
1630 and host-b) can set their browser's proxy to <emphasis>either</emphasis>
1631 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the content on isp-a or isp-b.
1635 Here's another practical example, for University of Kent at
1636 Canterbury students with a network connection in their room, who
1637 need to use the University's Squid web cache.
1644 <emphasis>forward *. ssbcache.ukc.ac.uk:3128</emphasis> # Use the proxy, except for:
1645 <emphasis>forward .ukc.ac.uk . </emphasis> # Anything on the same domain as us
1646 <emphasis>forward * . </emphasis> # Host with no domain specified
1647 <emphasis>forward 129.12.*.* . </emphasis> # A dotted IP on our /16 network.
1648 <emphasis>forward 127.*.*.* . </emphasis> # Loopback address
1649 <emphasis>forward localhost.localdomain . </emphasis> # Loopback address
1650 <emphasis>forward www.ukc.mirror.ac.uk . </emphasis> # Specific host
1657 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
1658 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
1659 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
1663 Your squid configuration could then look like this:
1670 # Define Privoxy as parent cache
1671 <!-- per feedback from user...
1672 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 8118 parent 0 no-query
1674 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 0 no-query
1676 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
1679 # Do not forward ACL FTP to privoxy
1680 always_direct allow FTP
1682 # Do not forward ACL CONNECT (https) to privoxy
1683 always_direct allow CONNECT
1685 # Forward the rest to privoxy
1686 never_direct allow all
1694 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1697 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1700 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
1702 Removed references to Win32. HB 09/23/01
1705 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
1706 Windows GUI interface:
1710 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
1711 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
1712 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
1719 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
1726 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
1727 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
1735 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
1742 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
1743 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
1744 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
1748 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
1749 eat up all your memory!
1756 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
1763 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
1764 in the log buffer. See above.
1771 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
1778 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
1779 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
1780 messages with a bold-faced font:
1787 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
1794 The font used in the console window:
1801 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
1808 Font size used in the console window:
1815 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
1822 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
1823 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
1831 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
1838 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
1839 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
1840 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
1847 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
1854 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
1855 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
1856 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
1873 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1876 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1877 <sect2 id="actionsfile">
1878 <title>The Actions File</title>
1881 The <quote>default.action</quote> file (formerly
1882 <filename>actionsfile</filename>) is used to define what actions
1883 <application>Privoxy</application> takes, and thus determines how images,
1884 cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and transactions are
1885 handled. Images can be anything you want, including ads, banners, or just
1886 some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1887 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e.
1888 not written to disk). Changes to <filename>default.action</filename> should
1889 be immediately visible to <application>Privoxy</application> without
1890 the need to restart.
1894 The easiest way to edit <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
1895 loading <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, and then select
1896 <quote>Edit Actions List</quote>. A text editor can also be used.
1900 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1901 compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
1902 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated. You can trace
1903 this process by visiting <ulink
1904 url="http://p.p/show-url-info">http://p.p/show-url-info</ulink>.
1909 There are four types of lines in this file: comments (begin with a
1910 <quote>#</quote> character), actions, aliases and patterns, all of which are
1911 explained below, as well as the configuration file syntax that
1912 <application>Privoxy</application> understands.
1917 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1919 <title>URL Domain and Path Syntax</title>
1921 Generally, a pattern has the form <domain>/<path>, where both the
1922 <domain> and <path> part are optional. If you only specify a
1923 domain part, the <quote>/</quote> can be left out:
1927 <emphasis>www.example.com</emphasis> - is a domain only pattern and will match any request to
1928 <quote>www.example.com</quote>.
1932 <emphasis>www.example.com/</emphasis> - means exactly the same.
1936 <emphasis>www.example.com/index.html</emphasis> - matches only the single
1937 document <quote>/index.html</quote> on <quote>www.example.com</quote>.
1941 <emphasis>/index.html</emphasis> - matches the document <quote>/index.html</quote>, regardless of
1946 <emphasis>index.html</emphasis> - matches nothing, since it would be
1947 interpreted as a domain name and there is no top-level domain called
1948 <quote>.html</quote>.
1952 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
1953 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
1958 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis> - matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
1959 <quote>.example.com</quote>.
1963 <emphasis>www.</emphasis> - matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
1968 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
1969 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
1970 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
1971 any single character. And you can define character classes in square
1972 brackets and they can be freely mixed:
1976 <emphasis>ad*.example.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
1977 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>.
1981 <emphasis>*ad*.example.com</emphasis> - matches all of the above, and then some.
1985 <emphasis>.?pix.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>www.ipix.com</quote>,
1986 <quote>pictures.epix.com</quote>, <quote>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</quote>, etc.
1990 <emphasis>www[1-9a-ez].example.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>www1.example.com</quote>,
1991 <quote>www4.example.com</quote>, <quote>wwwd.example.com</quote>,
1992 <quote>wwwz.example.com</quote>, etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
1993 <quote>wwww.example.com</quote>.
1997 If <application>Privoxy</application> was compiled with
1998 <quote>pcre</quote> support (default), Perl compatible regular expressions
1999 can be used. See the <filename>pcre/docs/</filename> directory or <quote>man
2000 perlre</quote> (also available on <ulink
2001 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>)
2002 for details. A brief discussion of regular expressions is in the
2003 <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link>. For instance:
2007 <emphasis>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpe?g</emphasis> - would match a URL from any
2008 domain, with any path that includes <quote>advert</quote> followed
2009 immediately by one or more digits, then a <quote>.</quote> and ending in
2010 either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>. So we match
2011 <quote>example.com/ads/advert2.jpg</quote>, and
2012 <quote>www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.jpeg</quote>, but not
2013 <quote>www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.gif</quote> (no gifs in the
2018 Please note that matching in the path is case
2019 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
2020 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2021 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
2025 <emphasis>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</emphasis> - will match only
2026 documents whose path starts with <quote>PaTtErN</quote> in
2027 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2032 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2036 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2039 <title>Actions</title>
2041 Actions are enabled if preceded with a <quote>+</quote>, and disabled if
2042 preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. Actions are invoked by enclosing the
2043 action name in curly braces (e.g. {+some_action}), followed by a list of
2044 URLs to which the action applies. There are three classes of actions:
2052 Boolean (e.g. <quote>+/-block</quote>):
2058 <emphasis>{+name}</emphasis> # enable this action
2059 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action
2069 parameterized (e.g. <quote>+/-hide-user-agent</quote>):
2075 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and set parameter to <quote>param</quote>
2076 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable action
2085 Multi-value (e.g. <quote>{+/-add-header{Name: value}}</quote>, <quote>{+/-wafer{name=value}}</quote>):
2091 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and add parameter <quote>param</quote>
2092 <emphasis>{-name{param}}</emphasis> # remove the parameter <quote>param</quote>
2093 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action totally
2104 If nothing is specified in this file, no <quote>actions</quote> are taken.
2105 So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2106 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically
2107 enable the privacy and blocking features you need (although the
2108 provided default <filename>default.action</filename> file will
2109 give a good starting point).
2113 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. For multi-valued
2114 actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
2118 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>actions</quote> are:
2126 Add the specified HTTP header, which is not checked for validity.
2127 You may specify this many times to specify many different headers:
2133 <emphasis>+add-header{Name: value}</emphasis>
2143 Block this URL totally. In a default installation, a <quote>blocked</quote>
2144 URL will result in bright red banner that says <quote>BLOCKED</quote>,
2145 with a reason why it is being blocked.
2151 <emphasis>+block</emphasis>
2161 De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
2162 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2163 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2164 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last frame
2165 of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for most
2166 banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire last
2167 frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2173 <emphasis>+deanimate-gifs{last}</emphasis>
2174 <emphasis>+deanimate-gifs{first}</emphasis>
2183 <quote>+downgrade</quote> will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to
2184 HTTP/1.0 and downgrade the responses as well. Use this action for servers
2185 that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that
2186 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1
2187 is only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests.
2193 <emphasis>+downgrade</emphasis>
2202 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2203 will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
2204 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs resulting
2205 from this scheme typically look like:
2206 http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else.
2209 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2210 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2211 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go to.
2212 Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your browser
2213 ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds the
2217 The <quote>+fast-redirects</quote> option enables interception of these
2218 requests by <application>Privoxy</application>, who will cut off all but
2219 the last valid URL in the request and send a local redirect back to your
2220 browser without contacting the remote site.
2226 <emphasis>+fast-redirects</emphasis>
2235 Apply the filters in the <literal>section_header</literal>
2236 section of the <filename>default.filter</filename> file to the site(s).
2237 <filename>default.filter</filename> sections are grouped according to like
2245 <emphasis>+filter{section_header}</emphasis>
2252 Filter sections that are pre-defined in the supplied
2253 <filename>default.filter</filename> include:
2259 <emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
2264 <emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
2269 <emphasis>no-poups</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
2274 <emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis>: Give frames a border
2279 <emphasis>webbugs</emphasis>: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
2284 <emphasis>no-refresh</emphasis>: Automatic refresh sucks on auto-dialup lines
2289 <emphasis>fun</emphasis>: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
2294 <emphasis>nimda</emphasis>: Remove (virus) Nimda code.
2299 <emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis>: Kill banners by size
2304 <emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis>: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
2313 Block any existing X-Forwarded-for header, and do not add a new one:
2319 <emphasis>+hide-forwarded</emphasis>
2328 If the browser sends a <quote>From:</quote> header containing your e-mail
2329 address, this either completely removes the header (<quote>block</quote>), or
2330 changes it to the specified e-mail address.
2336 <emphasis>+hide-from{block}</emphasis>
2337 <emphasis>+hide-from{spam@sittingduck.xqq}</emphasis>
2346 Don't send the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) header to the web site. You
2347 can block it, forge a URL to the same server as the request (which is
2348 preferred because some sites will not send images otherwise) or set it to a
2349 constant string of your choice.
2355 <emphasis>+hide-referer{block}</emphasis>
2356 <emphasis>+hide-referer{forge}</emphasis>
2357 <emphasis>+hide-referer{http://nowhere.com}</emphasis>
2366 Alternative spelling of <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. It has the same
2367 parameters, and can be freely mixed with, <quote>+hide-referer</quote>.
2368 (<quote>referrer</quote> is the correct English spelling, however the HTTP
2369 specification has a bug - it requires it to be spelled <quote>referer</quote>.)
2375 <emphasis>+hide-referrer{...}</emphasis>
2384 Change the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> header so web servers can't tell your
2385 browser type. Warning! This breaks many web sites. Specify the
2386 user-agent value you want. Example, pretend to be using Netscape on
2393 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla (X11; I; Linux 2.0.32 i586)}</emphasis>
2400 Or to identify yourself explicitly as a <application>Privoxy</application> user:
2406 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{Privoxy/1.0}</emphasis>
2411 (Don't change the version number from 1.0 - after all, why tell them?)
2418 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{browser-type}</emphasis>
2428 Treat this URL as an image. This only matters if it's also <quote>+block</quote>ed,
2429 in which case a <quote>blocked</quote> image can be sent rather than a HTML page.
2430 See <quote>+image-blocker{}</quote> below for the control over what is actually sent.
2431 If you want <emphasis>invisible</emphasis> ads, they should be defined as
2432 <emphasis>images</emphasis> and <emphasis>blocked</emphasis>. And also,
2433 <quote>image-blocker</quote> should be set to <quote>blank</quote>.
2439 <emphasis>+image</emphasis>
2447 <para> Decides what to do with URLs that end up tagged with <quote>{+block
2448 +image}</quote>, e.g an advertizement. There are five options.
2449 <quote>-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML <quote>blocked</quote> page,
2450 usually resulting in a <quote>broken image</quote> icon.
2451 <!-- <quote>+image-blocker{logo}</quote> will send a -->
2452 <!-- <application>Privoxy</application> logo -->
2454 <quote>+image-blocker{blank}</quote> will send a 1x1 transparent GIF
2455 image. And finally, <quote>+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}</quote> will send a
2456 HTTP temporary redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the
2457 icon being being cached by the browser, which will speed up the display.
2458 <quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a checkboard type pattern
2460 <!-- which scales better than the logo (which can get blocky if the browser -->
2461 <!-- enlarges it too much). -->
2467 <!-- <emphasis>+image-blocker{logo}</emphasis> -->
2468 <emphasis>+image-blocker{blank}</emphasis>
2469 <emphasis>+image-blocker{pattern}</emphasis>
2470 <emphasis>+image-blocker{http://p.p/send-banner}</emphasis>
2479 By default (i.e. in the absence of a <quote>+limit-connect</quote>
2480 action), <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow CONNECT
2481 requests to port 443, which is the standard port for https as a
2486 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
2487 (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy
2488 connects to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits
2489 its connections to the client <emphasis>and</emphasis> to the remote proxy.
2490 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can
2491 be abused as TCP relays very easily.
2495 If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
2496 CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
2497 port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
2505 <emphasis>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need no be specified.</emphasis>
2506 <emphasis>+limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.</emphasis>
2507 <emphasis>+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100</emphasis>
2508 <emphasis> #and above 500 are OK.</emphasis>
2518 <quote>+no-compression</quote> prevents the website from compressing the
2519 data. Some websites do this, which can be a problem for
2520 <application>Privoxy</application>, since <quote>+filter</quote>,
2521 <quote>+no-popup</quote> and <quote>+gif-deanimate</quote> will not work on
2522 compressed data. This will slow down connections to those websites,
2523 though. Default is <quote>nocompression</quote> is turned on.
2530 <emphasis>+nocompression</emphasis>
2539 If the website sets cookies, <quote>no-cookies-keep</quote> will make sure
2540 they are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
2541 profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
2542 that you can log in for transactions. Default: on.
2548 <emphasis>+no-cookies-keep</emphasis>
2557 Prevent the website from reading cookies:
2563 <emphasis>+no-cookies-read</emphasis>
2572 Prevent the website from setting cookies:
2578 <emphasis>+no-cookies-set</emphasis>
2587 Filter the website through a built-in filter to disable those obnoxious
2588 JavaScript pop-up windows via window.open(), etc. The two alternative
2589 spellings are equivalent.
2595 <emphasis>+no-popup</emphasis>
2596 <emphasis>+no-popups</emphasis>
2605 This action only applies if you are using a <filename>jarfile</filename>
2606 for saving cookies. It sends a cookie to every site stating that you do not
2607 accept any copyright on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track
2608 you. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header they could use to
2615 <emphasis>+vanilla-wafer</emphasis>
2624 This allows you to add an arbitrary cookie. It can be specified multiple
2625 times in order to add as many cookies as you like.
2631 <emphasis>+wafer{name=value}</emphasis>
2642 The meaning of any of the above is reversed by preceding the action with a
2643 <quote>-</quote>, in place of the <quote>+</quote>.
2651 Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified sites:
2658 # Turn off all persistent cookies
2659 { +no-cookies-read }
2661 # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
2662 { +no-cookies-keep }
2664 # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
2665 { -no-cookies-read }
2667 { -no-cookies-keep }
2674 # Alternative way of saying the same thing
2675 {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
2684 Now turn off <quote>fast redirects</quote>, and then we allow two exceptions:
2694 # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
2696 www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
2704 Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections
2705 of <filename>refilterfile</filename>, and make one exception for
2713 # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
2714 # specified sections:
2715 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
2716 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
2718 # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
2720 .cvs.sourceforge.net
2727 Now some URLs that we want <quote>blocked</quote>, ie we won't see them.
2728 Many of these use regular expressions that will expand to match multiple
2738 /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
2739 /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
2740 /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
2741 /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
2742 /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
2743 /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
2745 /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
2746 /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
2750 /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
2754 /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
2755 /.*/images/addver\.gif
2756 /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
2760 /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
2761 /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
2768 /graphics/defaultAd/
2770 /image\.ng/transactionID
2771 /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
2772 /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
2776 /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
2777 /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
2779 /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
2787 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
2788 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
2789 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
2790 content he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules
2791 for all sites. See the <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link>
2792 for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
2798 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2801 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2803 <title>Aliases</title>
2805 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
2806 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other <quote>actions</quote>.
2807 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in <quote>actions</quote>.
2808 Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, <quote>=</quote>,
2809 <quote>{</quote> or <quote>}</quote>. But please use only <quote>a</quote>-
2810 <quote>z</quote>, <quote>0</quote>-<quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and
2811 <quote>-</quote>. Alias names are not case sensitive, and
2812 <emphasis>must be defined before anything</emphasis> else in the
2813 <filename>default.action</filename>file ! And there can only be one set of
2814 <quote>aliases</quote> defined.
2818 Now let's define a few aliases:
2825 # Useful customer aliases we can use later. These must come first!
2827 +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
2828 -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
2829 fragile = -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -no-popups
2830 shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
2831 +imageblock = +block +image
2833 #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
2836 c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
2837 c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
2838 #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
2845 Some examples using our <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote>
2853 # These sites are very complex and require
2854 # minimal interference.
2856 .office.microsoft.com
2857 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
2860 # Shopping sites - still want to block ads.
2863 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
2867 # These shops require pop-ups
2879 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2882 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2883 <sect2 id="filterfile">
2884 <title>The Filter File</title>
2886 Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
2887 modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
2888 including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
2889 <filename>default.filter</filename>, located in the config directory.
2893 The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins
2894 with the <literal>FILTER</literal> keyword, followed by the identifier
2895 for that section, e.g. <quote>FILTER: webbugs</quote>. Each section performs
2896 a similar type of filtering, such as <quote>html-annoyances</quote>.
2901 This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the
2902 target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some
2903 examples from the included default <filename>default.filter</filename>:
2907 Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
2908 deleting such references:
2915 FILTER: html-annoyances
2917 # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
2920 s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
2921 s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
2922 s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
2923 s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
2925 # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
2927 s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
2931 #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
2932 #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
2939 Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of <quote>Microsoft</quote> with
2940 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>, and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
2949 s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
2953 s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></font>/ig
2960 Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
2967 # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
2970 s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
2978 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2982 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2985 <title>Templates</title>
2987 When <application>Privoxy</application> displays one of its internal
2988 pages, such as a 404 Not Found error page, it uses the appropriate template.
2989 On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these are located in
2990 <filename>/etc/privoxy/templates</filename> by default. These may be
2991 customized, if desired.
2998 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3002 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3003 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
3005 Install package, then run and enjoy! <application>Privoxy</application>
3006 is typically started by specifying the main configuration file to be
3007 used on the command line. Example Unix startup command:
3013 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
3019 An init script is provided for SuSE and Redhat.
3023 For for SuSE: /etc/rc.d/privoxy start
3027 For RedHat: /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
3032 If no configuration file is specified on the command line,
3033 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
3034 <filename>config</filename> in the current directory. Except on Win32 where
3035 it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>. If no file is specified on the
3036 command line and no default configuration file can be found,
3037 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
3041 Be sure your browser is set to use the proxy which is by default at
3042 localhost, port 8118. With <application>Netscape</application> (and
3043 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
3044 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
3045 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools >
3046 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
3047 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
3048 localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
3052 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
3053 point, though may be somewhat aggressive in blocking junk. You will probably
3054 want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent cookies, and add these to
3055 <filename>default.action</filename> as needed. By default, most of these will
3056 be accepted only during the current browser session, until you add them to
3057 the configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will
3058 need to edit <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you
3059 use more than one browser, it would make more sense to let
3060 <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the
3061 browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
3065 If a particular site shows problems loading properly, try adding it
3066 to the <literal>{fragile}</literal> section of
3067 <filename>default.action</filename>. This will turn off most actions for
3072 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all 1.1
3073 features are as yet implemented. If browsers that support HTTP/1.1 (like
3074 <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.) experience
3075 problems, you might try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look
3076 under <literal>Edit -> Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
3077 Or set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
3078 <filename>default.action</filename>.
3082 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
3083 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
3084 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
3085 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote> (as specified in <filename>default.action</filename>)
3086 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
3087 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>,
3088 and then follow the link to <quote>edit the actions list</quote>.
3089 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
3093 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
3094 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
3095 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
3096 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
3097 to a given URL. In addition to the <filename>default.action</filename> file
3098 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
3099 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> from this page.
3103 If you encounter problems, please verify it is a
3104 <application>Privoxy</application> bug, by disabling
3105 <application>Privoxy</application>, and then trying the same page.
3106 Also, try another browser if possible to eliminate browser or site
3107 problems. Before reporting it as a bug, see if there is not a configuration
3108 option that is enabled that is causing the page not to load. You can
3109 then add an exception for that page or site. If a bug, please report it to
3110 the developers (see below).
3115 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3118 <title>Command Line Options</title>
3120 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
3121 command-line options:
3129 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
3132 Print version info and exit, Unix only.
3137 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
3140 Print a short usage info and exit, Unix only.
3145 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
3148 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
3149 leader, don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
3154 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
3158 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
3159 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failiure to create or delete the
3160 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
3161 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
3166 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
3170 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
3171 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
3172 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
3177 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
3180 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
3181 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
3182 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
3183 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
3184 full path to avoid confusion.
3195 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3199 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3201 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
3204 We value your feedback. However, to provide you with the best support,
3209 <listitem><para>Use the <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118">Sourceforge support forum</ulink> to get
3210 help.</para></listitem>
3212 <listitem><para>Submit bugs only thru our <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118">Sourceforge bug
3214 Make sure that the bug has not already been submitted. Please try to
3215 verify that it is a <application>Privoxy</application> bug, and not
3216 a browser or site bug first. If you are using your own custom configuration,
3217 please try the stock configs to see if the problem is a configuration
3218 related bug. And if not using the latest development snapshot, please
3219 try the latest one. Or even better, CVS sources.</para>
3223 <listitem><para>Submit feature requests only thru our <ulink
3224 url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118&func=browse">Sourceforge feature request forum</ulink>.</para></listitem>
3232 For any other issues, feel free to use the <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=11118">mailing lists</ulink>.
3236 Anyone interested in actively participating in development and related
3237 discussions can join the appropriate mailing list
3238 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=11118">here</ulink>.
3239 Archives are available here too.
3245 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3246 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
3249 <title>License</title>
3251 <application>Privoxy</application> is free software; you can
3252 redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
3253 License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
3254 License, or (at your option) any later version.
3258 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3259 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
3260 FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
3261 details, which is available from <ulink
3262 url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">the Free Software Foundation,
3263 Inc</ulink>, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
3268 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3271 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3274 <title>History</title>
3276 <application>Junkbuster</application> was originally written by Anonymous
3278 url="http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/ijbfaq.html">Junkbuster's
3279 Corporation</ulink>, and was released as free open-source software under the
3280 GNU GPL. <ulink url="http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/">Stefan
3281 Waldherr</ulink> made many improvements, and started the <ulink
3282 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">SourceForge project
3283 Privoxy</ulink> to rekindle development. There are now several active
3284 developers contributing. The last stable release was v2.0.2, which has now
3292 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3293 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
3298 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa">http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa</ulink>
3303 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/</ulink>
3308 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>
3313 <ulink url="http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html">http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html</ulink>
3318 <ulink url="http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/">http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/</ulink>
3323 <ulink url="http://privacy.net/analyze/">http://privacy.net/analyze/</ulink>
3328 <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">http://www.squid-cache.org/</ulink>
3337 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3338 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
3341 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3343 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
3345 <application>Privoxy</application> can use <quote>regular expressions</quote>
3346 in various config files. Assuming support for <quote>pcre</quote> (Perl
3347 Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the default. Such
3348 configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but they can be
3349 used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against
3354 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
3355 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
3356 introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
3360 <quote>Regular expressions</quote> is a way of matching one character
3361 expression against another to see if it matches or not. One of the
3362 <quote>expressions</quote> is a literal string of readable characters
3363 (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a complex string of literal
3364 characters combined with wild-cards, and other special characters, called
3365 meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have special meanings and
3366 are used to build the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible
3367 Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
3368 with backward compatibility.
3372 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
3373 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
3374 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
3375 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
3376 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
3377 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
3378 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
3379 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
3383 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
3384 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
3385 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
3386 and then some examples:
3391 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
3392 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
3398 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
3405 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
3412 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
3419 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
3420 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
3421 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
3422 not as a special meta-character.
3428 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
3429 any of the enclosed characters are encountered.
3435 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
3436 or multiple sub-expressions.
3442 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
3443 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
3444 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches.
3450 <emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
3451 <quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
3457 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
3458 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
3459 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
3460 be more illuminating:
3464 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
3465 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
3466 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
3467 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
3468 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
3469 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
3470 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
3471 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
3472 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
3473 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
3474 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
3475 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
3476 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
3477 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
3482 A now something a little more complex:
3486 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
3487 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
3488 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
3489 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
3490 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
3491 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
3492 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
3497 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
3498 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
3499 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
3500 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
3501 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
3502 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
3503 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
3504 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
3505 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
3506 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
3507 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
3508 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
3509 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
3510 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
3511 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
3512 changing our regular expression to:
3513 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
3518 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
3519 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
3520 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
3521 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
3522 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
3523 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
3524 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
3525 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
3526 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
3527 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
3528 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
3529 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
3530 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
3531 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
3532 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
3533 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
3534 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
3535 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
3536 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
3537 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
3538 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
3539 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
3540 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
3541 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
3542 in the expression anywhere).
3546 <emphasis><literal>s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i</literal></emphasis> - This is
3547 a substitution. <quote>MicroSuck</quote> will replace any occurrence of
3548 <quote>microsoft</quote>. The <quote>i</quote> at the end of the expression
3549 means ignore case. The <quote>(?!.com)</quote> means
3550 the match should fail if <quote>microsoft</quote> is followed by
3551 <quote>.com</quote>. In other words, this acts like a <quote>NOT</quote>
3552 modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
3556 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
3557 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
3558 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
3559 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
3560 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
3565 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
3566 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
3571 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3574 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3576 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
3579 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
3580 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
3581 trap certain URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
3582 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
3583 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
3584 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
3585 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
3591 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
3592 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
3593 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
3594 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
3607 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/</ulink>
3611 Alternately, this may be reached at <ulink
3612 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, but this
3613 variation may not work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
3619 Show information about the current configuration:
3623 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-status">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-status</ulink>
3630 Show the source code version numbers:
3634 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-version">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-version</ulink>
3641 Show the client's request headers:
3645 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-request">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-request</ulink>
3652 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
3656 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info</ulink>
3663 Toggle Privoxy on or off:
3667 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle</ulink>
3671 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
3675 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle?set=disable">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
3680 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle?set=enable">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
3687 Edit the actions list file:
3691 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/edit-actions">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/edit-actions</ulink>
3700 These may be bookmarked for quick reference.
3707 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3708 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
3709 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
3712 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies <quote>actions</quote>
3713 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so easy to understand what
3714 is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to <emphasis>see</emphasis>
3715 just what <application>Privoxy</application> is doing. Especially,
3716 if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing is causing
3717 us a problem inadvertantly. It can be a little daunting to look at
3718 the actions files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
3719 <quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
3720 so obvious. <application>Privoxy</application> provides the
3721 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info</ulink>
3722 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
3723 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
3727 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
3728 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
3729 how current configuration will handle it. This will not
3730 help with filtering effects from the <filename>default.filter</filename>! It
3731 also will not tell you about any other URLs that may be embedded within the
3732 URL you are testing. For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs
3733 within the raw page source of HTML pages. So you will only get info for the
3734 actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area -- not any sub-URLs. If you
3735 want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you will have to dig those out of
3736 the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View Page Source</quote> option
3741 Let's look at an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
3742 one section at a time:
3747 System default actions:
3749 { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
3750 -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
3751 -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
3752 -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
3758 This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in defaults. This
3759 is basically what <application>Privoxy</application> would do if there
3760 were not any <quote>actions</quote> defined, i.e. it does nothing. Every action
3761 is disabled. This is not particularly informative for our purposes here. OK,
3768 Matches for http://google.com:
3770 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
3771 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
3772 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
3773 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
3774 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
3775 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
3776 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
3779 { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
3789 This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our
3790 <quote>actions</quote>, and which ones match for our example,
3791 <quote>google.com</quote>. The first grouping shows our default
3792 settings, which would apply to all URLs. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote>
3793 file, this would be the section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section
3794 near the top. This applies to all URLs as signified by the single forward
3795 slash -- <quote>/</quote>.
3800 These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
3801 actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list
3802 specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins.
3803 Just below this then are two explict matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
3804 The first is negating our various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow
3805 cookies here). The second is allowing <quote>fast-redirects</quote>. Note
3806 that there is a leading dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will
3807 match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
3808 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these actions defined
3809 somewhere in the lower part of our actions file, and
3810 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced in these sections.
3815 And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
3816 <application>Privoxy</application> is appying all its <quote>actions</quote>
3817 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
3826 -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
3827 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
3828 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
3829 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
3830 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
3831 -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
3838 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
3857 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
3858 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +image</quote>,
3859 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
3860 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<quote>Aliases</quote> are defined in the
3861 first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
3866 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
3867 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
3868 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
3869 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
3870 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
3871 is done here -- as both a <quote>+block</quote> <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
3872 <quote>+image</quote>. The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> does this
3877 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
3878 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
3884 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
3886 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
3887 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
3888 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
3889 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
3890 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
3891 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
3892 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
3902 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
3903 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
3904 now add a new action below this that explictly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
3905 block (-block) pages with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are various ways to
3906 handle such exceptions. Example:
3919 Now the page displays ;-)
3929 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
3930 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
3931 Public License as published by the Free Software
3932 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
3933 your option) any later version.
3935 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
3936 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
3937 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
3938 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
3939 License for more details.
3941 The GNU General Public License should be included with
3942 this file. If not, you can view it at
3943 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
3944 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
3945 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
3947 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
3948 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
3949 we are too lazy to make a block-built
3950 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
3952 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
3953 name change related issue.
3955 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
3956 name change. changed filenames.
3958 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
3961 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
3962 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
3963 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
3964 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
3965 comments and remarks to history untouched.
3967 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
3970 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
3971 New section in Appendix.
3973 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
3974 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
3976 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
3977 correct feedback channels
3979 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
3980 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
3982 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
3985 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
3986 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
3988 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
3989 Added imageblock{pattern}.
3991 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
3994 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
3995 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
3997 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
3998 provide correct feedback channels
4000 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
4001 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
4003 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
4004 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
4006 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
4007 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
4009 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
4010 Add new - - user option.
4012 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
4013 Added section on command line options.
4015 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
4016 Changed default port to 8118
4018 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
4019 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
4021 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
4022 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
4023 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
4026 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
4029 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
4030 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
4032 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
4033 Update OS/2 build section
4035 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
4036 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
4037 will work - no other changes are needed.
4039 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
4040 Added a very short section on Templates
4042 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
4043 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
4045 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
4046 Touch ups for *.action files.
4048 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
4051 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
4052 Updates for recent changes.
4054 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
4055 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
4057 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
4058 Correct 2 minor errors
4060 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
4061 *** empty log message ***
4063 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
4064 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
4066 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
4067 wrong url in documentation
4069 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
4070 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
4072 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
4075 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
4078 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
4081 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
4082 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
4084 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
4085 Some additions, and re-arranging.
4087 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
4090 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
4091 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
4093 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
4096 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
4097 source files for junkbuster documentation
4099 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
4100 first proposal of a structure.
4102 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
4103 docs should have an author.
4105 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
4106 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob