<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN"[
-<!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
+<!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
<!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
<!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
<!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
<!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
<!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
<!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
-<!entity p-version SYSTEM "doc_version.tmp">
-<!entity p-status SYSTEM "doc_status.tmp">
+<!entity p-version "3.0.19">
+<!entity p-status "stable">
<!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
-<!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
+<!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
<!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
<!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
<!entity % p-supp-userman "INCLUDE"> <!-- Include all from supported.sgml -->
<!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
+<!entity % p-newstuff "INCLUDE"> <!-- exclude stuff from devel versions -->
+<!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
+<!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
]>
<!--
File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/faq.sgml,v $
Purpose : FAQ
This file belongs into
ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
-
- $Id: faq.sgml,v 2.2 2002/09/05 04:25:05 hal9 Exp $
- Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
+ $Id: faq.sgml,v 2.84 2011/11/13 17:03:54 fabiankeil Exp $
+
+ Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
See LICENSE.
Based partially on the Internet Junkbuster FAQ originally written by and
<Qandaset defaultlabel='qanda'>
<QandAEntry>
<question>
- <para>
+ <para>
How are you?
</para>
</question>
<answer>
- <para>
+ <para>
Fine.
</para>
</answer>
</QandASet>
========================================================================
- NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
- anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation. You have been warned!
- Failure to abide by this rule will result in the revocation of your license
- to live a peaceful existence!
+ NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
+ this file!
+
+ Please we keep the info in this file as version independent as possible
+ so we only have to maintain one FAQ. Where significant changes are
+ made to Privoxy configuration, please note the change in such a way that
+ it makes sense to both users of older and newer versions.
========================================================================
<subscript>
<!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
<!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
- <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001, 2002 by
- <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
+ <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2011 by
+ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
</subscript>
</pubdate>
-<pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 2.2 2002/09/05 04:25:05 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
+<pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 2.84 2011/11/13 17:03:54 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
<!--
-Note: this should generate a separate page, and a live link to it.
+Note: this should generate a separate page, and a live link to it.
But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave commented
-unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the copyright
+unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the copyright
statement will be in copyright.smgl.
Hal.
-<legalnotice id="legalnotice">
+<legalnotice id="legalnotice">
<para>
text goes here ........
</para>
</para>
]]>
<para>
- This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
+ This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
<ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
- It can't and doesn't replace the
- <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
-<!--
+ It is not a substitute for the
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
+<!--
This works, at least in some situtations:
Test: <ulink url="privoxy-user-manual.pdf"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
--->
+-->
</para>
<!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
- &p-intro;
+ <para>What is Privoxy?</para> &p-intro;
<!-- end boilerplate -->
<para>
- Please note that this document is constantly evolving. This copy represents
+ Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents
the state at the release of version &p-version;.
You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink
url="http://www.privoxy.org/faq/">http://www.privoxy.org/faq/</ulink>.
Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> if you want to
- contact the developers.
+ contact the developers.
</para>
<!-- <para> -->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect1 id="general"><title>General Information</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="who-uses"><title>Who should give &my-app; a try?</title>
+ <para>
+ Anyone who is interested in security, privacy, or in
+ finer-grained control over their web and Internet experience.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="bestchoice"><title>Is Privoxy the best choice for
+me?</title>
+ <para>
+ &my-app; is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more
+ control and security. Those with the willingness to read the documentation
+ and the ability to fine-tune their installation will benefit the most.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ One of <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ strengths is that it is highly configurable giving you the ability to
+ completely personalize your installation. Being familiar with, or at least
+ having an interest in learning about <ulink
+ url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http">HTTP</ulink> and other networking
+ protocols, <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html">HTML</ulink>, and
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
+ Expressions</quote></ulink>
+ will be a big plus and will help you get the most out of &my-app;.
+ A new installation just includes a very basic configuration. The user
+ should take this as a starting point only, and enhance it as he or she
+ sees fit. In fact, the user is encouraged, and expected to, fine-tune the
+ configuration.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Much of <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration can be done
+ with a <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser">Web browser</ulink>.
+ But there are areas where configuration is done using a
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_editors">text editor</ulink>
+ to edit configuration files. Also note that the web-based action editor
+ doesn't use authentication and should only be enabled in environments
+ where all clients with access to &my-app; listening port can be trusted.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
+Privoxy work? </title>
+ <para>
+ A <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">web proxy</ulink>
+ is a service, based on a software such as &my-app;, that clients
+ (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting to web servers directly.
+ The clients then ask the proxy to request objects (web pages, images, movies etc)
+ on their behalf and to forward the data to the clients.
+ It is a <quote>go-between</quote>. For details, see
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">Wikipedia's proxy definition</ulink>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
+ efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies
+ to accommodate those needs.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ &my-app; is a proxy that is primarily focused on
+ privacy enhancement, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from
+ restrictions placed on his activities. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
+ it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
+ browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
+ this, all of which are under your complete control via the various configuration
+ files and options. Being a proxy also makes it easier to share
+ configurations among multiple browsers and/or users.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherstuff">
+<title>Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?</title>
+ <para>
+ Yes, ad blocking is but one possible use. There are many, many ways &my-app;
+ can be used to sanitize and customize web browsing.
+</para>
+</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of
+<quote><citetitle>Junkbuster</citetitle></quote>?</title>
<!-- Include history.sgml -->
&history;
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why a name change at all?</title>
+<title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why change the name from
+Junkbuster at all?</title>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is the
- <quote><emphasis>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</emphasis></quote>. Also, its content
- modification and junk suppression allow you to browse your
- <quote><emphasis>private</emphasis> edition</quote> of the web.
-</para>
-<para>
- <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>
+ Though outdated, <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>
continues to offer their original version of the <application>Internet
Junkbuster</application>, so publishing our
<application> Junkbuster</application>-derived software under the same name
led to confusion.
</para>
<para>
- There are also potential legal complications from the continued use of the
- <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a registered trademark of
+ There are also potential legal complications from our use of the
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a registered trademark of
<ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>.
- There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
+ There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
<application>Privoxy</application> project itself, and they, in fact, still
share our ideals and goals.
</para>
<para>
- The developers also believed that there are so many changes from the original
- code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
- a name in their own right<![%p-not-stable;[, especially now with the pending
- release of version 3.0]]>.
+ The developers also believed that there are so many improvements over the original
+ code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
+ a name in their own right.
+</para>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is the
+ <quote><emphasis>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</emphasis></quote>. Also, its content
+ modification and junk suppression gives <emphasis>you</emphasis>, the user, more
+ control, more freedom, and allows you to browse your personal and
+ <quote><emphasis>private</emphasis> edition</quote> of the web.
</para>
</sect2>
-
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="differs"><title>How does <application>Privoxy</application> differ
-from the old <application>Junkbuster?</application></title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="differs"><title>How does Privoxy differ
+from the old Junkbuster?</title>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application> picks up where
- <application>Junkbuster</application> left off. All the old features remain.
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> left off.
The new <application>Privoxy</application> still blocks ads and banners,
- still manages cookies, and still helps protect your privacy. But, these are
- all enhanced, and many new features have been added, all in the same vein.
+ still manages <ulink
+ url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>, and still
+ helps protect your privacy. But, most of these features have been enhanced,
+ and many new ones have been added, all in the same vein.
</para>
- <para>
- The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
- users will notice right off the bat if upgrading from
- <application>Junkbuster</application> 2.0.x. The <quote>blocklist</quote>
- <quote>cookielist</quote>, <quote>imagelist</quote> and much more has been
- combined into the <quote>actions</quote> files, with a completely different
- syntax. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note to
- upgraders</ulink> for details.
-</para>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application>'s new features include:
</para>
-<!-- Include newfeatures.sgml: -->
+<!-- Include newfeatures.sgml: -->
&newfeatures;
<!-- end include -->
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
-<application>Privoxy</application> work? </title>
- <para>
- A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as <application>Privoxy</application>,
- that clients (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting directly to the web
- servers on the Internet. The clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects
- they need (web pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy
- has done so, it hands the results back to the client.
- </para>
- <para>
- There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
- efficiency (caching) and others, and there are just as many different proxies
- to accommodate those needs.
- </para>
- <para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is a proxy that is solely focused on privacy
- protection and junk elimination. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
- it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
- browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
- this, all of which are under your control via the various configuration
- files and options.
- </para>
-</sect2>
-
-
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whatsanad">
-<title id="knows">How does <application>Privoxy</application> know what is
+<title id="knows">How does Privoxy know what is
an ad, and what is not?</title>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application>'s approach to blocking ads is twofold:
and the host (blocking the big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net
already helps a lot). <application>Privoxy</application> takes advantage of this
fact by using <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL
- patterns</ulink> to sort out and block the requests for banners.
+ patterns</ulink> to sort out and block the requests for things that sound
+ like they would be ads or banners.
</para>
<para>
Second, banners tend to come in certain <emphasis>sizes</emphasis>. But you
</para>
<para>
Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
- configurable.
+ and readily configurable.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="mistakes">Can <application>Privoxy</application> make mistakes?
+<title id="mistakes">Can Privoxy make mistakes?
This does not sound very scientific.</title>
<para>
Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
- rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. There is a good chance
- you may run into such a situation at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
+ rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
+ run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
</para>
</sect2>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3">
+<title id="configornot">Will I have to configure Privoxy
+ before I can use it?</title>
+<para>
+ That depends on your expectations.
+ The default installation should give you a good starting
+ point, and block <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads and unwanted content,
+ but many of the more advanced features are off by default, and require
+ you to activate them.
+</para>
+<para>
+ You do have to set up your browser to use
+ <application>Privoxy</application> (see the <link
+ linkend="firststep">Installation section below</link>).
+</para>
+<para>
+ And you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives,
+ or ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you
+ would certainly benefit by customizing <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ configuration to more closely match your individual situation. And we
+ encourage you to do this. This is where the real power of
+ <application>Privoxy</application> lies!
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lan">
+<title>Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?</title>
+ <para>
+ Yes, &my-app; runs as a server already, and can easily be configured to
+ <quote>serve</quote> more than one client. See <link linkend="lanconfig">
+ How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN</link> below.
+</para>
+</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browsers2"><title>My browser does the same things as
-<application>Privoxy</application>. Why should I use
-<application>Privoxy</application> at all?</title>
+Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at all?</title>
<para>
Modern browsers do indeed have <emphasis>some</emphasis> of the same
functionality as <application>Privoxy</application>. Maybe this is
- adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is much more
- versatile and powerful, and can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
+ adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is very
+ versatile and powerful, and can probably do a number of things
+ your browser just can't.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
+ have a LAN with multiple computers since &my-app; can run as a server
+ application. This way all the configuration is in one place, and you don't
+ have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers or
+ users.
</para>
<para>
- In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
- have a LAN with multiple computers. This way all the configuration
- is in one place, and you don't have to maintain a similar configuration
- for possibly many browsers.
+ Note, however, that it's recommended to leverage both your browser's
+ and <application>Privoxy's</application> privacy enhancing features
+ at the same time. While your browser probably lacks some features
+ &my-app; offers, it should also be able to do some things more
+ reliable, for example restricting and suppressing JavaScript.
</para>
</sect2>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whytrust"><title>Why should I trust Privoxy?</title>
+ <para>
+ The most important reason is because you have access to
+ <emphasis>everything</emphasis>, and you can control everything. You can
+ check every line of every configuration file yourself. You can check every
+ last bit of source code should you desire. And even if you can't read code,
+ there should be some comfort in knowing that <!-- thousands of -->other people can,
+ and do read it. You can build the software from scratch, if you want,
+ so that you know the executable is clean, and that it is
+ <emphasis>yours</emphasis>. In fact, we encourage this level of scrutiny. It
+ is one reason we use &my-app; ourselves.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
-
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
warranty? Registration?</title>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is licensed under the <ulink
- url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</ulink>.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is
free software and licensed under the <ulink
+ url="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2</ulink>.
It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this
license. Please see the <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> section for more
- information on the license and copyright. Or the <filename>LICENSE</filename> file
+ information on the license and copyright. Or the <filename>LICENSE</filename> file
that should be included.
</para>
<para>
There is <emphasis>no warranty</emphasis> of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
- <application>Privoxy</application> really is <emphasis>free</emphasis>
- in every respect!
</para>
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="jointeam"><title>I would like to help you, what do I do?</title>
-
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-money"><title>Money Money Money</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="spyware">
+<title>Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?</title>
<para>
- We, of course, welcome donations and could use money for domain registering,
- buying software to test <application>Privoxy</application> with, and, of course,
- for regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). If you enjoy the software and feel
- like helping us with a donation, just <ulink
- url="mailto:developers@privoxy.org">drop us a note</ulink>.
+ No, at least not reliably enough to trust it. &my-app; is not designed to be
+ a malware removal tool and the default configuration doesn't even try to
+ filter out any malware.
</para>
-</sect3>
+<para>
+ &my-app; could help prevent contact from (known) sites that use such
+ tactics with appropriate configuration rules, and thus could conceivably
+ prevent contamination from such sites. However, keeping such a configuration
+ up to date would require a lot of time and effort that would be better spend
+ on keeping your software itself up to date so it doesn't have known
+ vulnerabilities.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-software"><title>Software</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherads">
+<title>Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?</title>
<para>
- If you are a vendor of a web-related software like a browser, web server
- or proxy, and would like us to ensure that <application>Privoxy</application>
- runs smoothly with your product, you might consider supplying us with a
- copy or license. We can't, however, guarantee that we will fix all potential
- compatibility issues as a result.
+ &my-app; should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
</para>
-</sect3>
+<para>
+ But it is probably not necessary to use &my-app; in conjunction with other
+ ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results.
+ It might be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to
+ tweak its configuration to your liking.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Note that this is an advice specific to ad blocking.
+</para>
+</sect2>
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-work"><title>You want to work with us?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="help-the-developers"><title id="jointeam">I would like to help you, what can I do?</title>
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="participate"><title id="jointeam-work">Would you like to participate?</title>
<para>
- Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers,
- packaging gurus or documentation writers. Simply <ulink
+ Well, we <emphasis>always</emphasis> need help. There is something for
+ everybody who wants to help us. We welcome new developers, packagers,
+ testers, documentation writers or really anyone with a desire to help in
+ any way. You <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> need to be a
+ <quote>programmer</quote>. There are many other tasks available. In fact,
+ the programmers often can't spend as much time programming because of some
+ of the other, more mundane things that need to be done, like checking the
+ Tracker feedback sections or responding to user questions on the mailing
+ lists.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ So first thing, subscribe to the <ulink
+ url="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-users">Privoxy Users</ulink>
+ or the <ulink url="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-developers">Privoxy
+ Developers</ulink> mailing list, join the discussion, help out other users, provide general
+ feedback or report problems you noticed.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you intend to help out with the trackers, you also might want to <ulink
url="https://sourceforge.net/account/register.php">get an account on SourceForge.net</ulink>
- and mail your id to the <ulink url="mailto:developers@privoxy.org">developers
- mailing list</ulink>. Then read the <ulink
+ so we don't confuse you with the other name-less users.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ We also have a <ulink
url="../developer-manual/index.html">Developer's Manual</ulink>.
+ While it is partly out of date, it's still worth reading.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Our <ulink url="http://ijbswa.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ijbswa/current/TODO?view=markup">TODO list</ulink>
+ may be of interest to you as well.
+ Please let us know if you want to work on one of the items listed.
+</para>
+</sect3>
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="donate"><title>Would you like to donate?</title>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is developed by unpaid volunteers
+ and thus our current running costs are pretty low. Nevertheless, we
+ have plans that will cost money in the future. They include,
+ but aren't limited to spending money on:
+
+</para>
+
+<para>
+<itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Hardware to help make sure <application>Privoxy</application>
+ keeps running on platforms the developers currently can't test
+ on and can be ported to others.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Technical books to educate our developers about said platforms
+ or to improve their knowledge in general.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ More reliable hosting,
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+</itemizedlist>
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ We would like to get this money through donations made by our users.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> has therefore become an associated
+ project of <ulink url="http://www.spi-inc.org/about-spi/about-spi">Software
+ in the Public Interest (SPI)</ulink>, which allows us to receive donations.
+ In the United States they are tax-deductible, in a few other western countries
+ they might be tax-deductible in the future.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ If you read this section before you may notice that paying for the
+ project domain privoxy.org is no longer on the list. It has been
+ transferred to SPI is sponsored by Mythic Beasts Ltd.
</para>
+
<para>
- Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the <ulink
- url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">CVS repository</ulink>, and
- together we'll find a suitable task for you.
+ If you enjoy our software and feel like helping out with a donation,
+ please have a look at
+ <ulink url="http://www.spi-inc.org/donations">SPI's donation page</ulink>
+ to see what the options are. If you have any questions regarding donations
+ please mail to either the public user mailing list or, if it's a private
+ matter, to <ulink url="mailto:fk@fabiankeil.de">Fabian Keil</ulink>
+ (Privoxy's SPI liason) directly.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichbrowsers">
-<title>Which browsers are supported by <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
-<para>
- Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
- should be virtually all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary
- since <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and
- talks to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
+<title>Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?</title>
+<para>
+ Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
+ should be virtually all browsers, including
+ <application>Firefox</application>, <application>Internet
+ Explorer</application>, <application>Opera</application>, and
+ <application>Safari</application> among others.
+ Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since
+ <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and talks
+ to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
does.
</para>
</sect2>
&supported;
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
- <application>Privoxy</application> over <application>Junkbuster</application>?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="email-client">
+<title>Can I use Privoxy with my email client?</title>
+<para>
+ As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes,
+ any application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a
+ <quote>browser</quote> or not. Though this may not be the best approach for
+ dealing with some of the common abuses of HTML in email. See <link
+ linkend="outlook">How can I configure <application>Privoxy</application>
+ with <application>Outlook</application>?</link> below for more on
+ this.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
+ related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
+ recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
+ text for these reasons.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<!-- Nobody is going to still be doing this!
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
+ Privoxy over Junkbuster?</title>
<para>
We recommend you un-install <application>Junkbuster</application>
- first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
+ first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
files and syntax have substantially changed, so you will need to manually
port your old patterns. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note
to upgraders</ulink> and <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">installation
- chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink>
+ chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink>
for details.
</para>
<para>
</para>
</sect2>
+-->
-<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="firststep">I just installed <application>Privoxy</application>. Is there anything
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="firststep">
+<title>I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
special I have to do now?</title>
<para>
- All browsers must be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
- as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
- in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. See below.
- You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache to get rid of any
- cached junk items.
+ All browsers should be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
+ as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
+ in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. It's possible
+ to combine &my-app; with a packet filter to intercept HTTP requests
+ even if the client isn't explicitly configured to use &my-app;,
+ but where possible, configuring the client is recommended. See
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">the User Manual for more
+ details</ulink>. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk
+ cache to get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>.
</para>
</sect2>
-
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of Privoxy?</title>
<para>
If you set up the <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
- networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>
+ networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>
(sometimes referred to as <quote>localhost</quote>,
which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
- to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you have <application>Privoxy</application>
- to run on a different port with the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink> config option).
+ to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you used the <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
+ config option to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
+ a different port).
</para>
<para>
When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
the word <quote>localhost</quote> or the IP address <quote>127.0.0.1</quote>
in the boxes next to <quote>HTTP</quote> and <quote>Secure</quote> (HTTPS) and
- then the number <quote>8118</quote> for <quote>port</quote>.
+ then the number <quote>8118</quote> for <quote>port</quote>.
This tells your browser to send all web requests to <application>Privoxy</application>
instead of directly to the Internet.
</para>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
- a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
- address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
- is running, or the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be
- same as above. Note that <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't
- listen on any LAN interfaces by default.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
+ a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
+ address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
+ is running, or the equivalent hostname, e.g. <literal>192.168.1.1</literal>.
+ Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
+ <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by
+ default.
</para>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application> does not currently handle
- protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, or other Internet
- protocols.
+ any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, etc.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nothing">
-<title>I just installed <application>Privoxy</application>, and nothing is happening.
+<title>I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening.
All the ads are there. What's wrong?</title>
<para>
- Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
+ Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
- the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
- that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
- is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
- <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>.
+ the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
+ that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
+ is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
+ <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>.
+ <!-- Use http://p.p/ instead of http://config.privoxy.org/ here because
+ of potential redirect caching problem (see next Q). -->
This should take you to a page titled <quote>This is Privoxy..</quote> with
access to <application>Privoxy's</application> internal configuration.
- If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
+ If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
<quote>Privoxy is not running</quote>, then the browser is not set up to use
your <application>Privoxy</application> installation.
If you receive anything else (probably nothing at all), it could either
be that the browser is not set up correctly, or that
<application>Privoxy</application> is not running at all. Check the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/config.html#LOGFILE">log file</ulink>.
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#LOGFILE">log file</ulink>. For instructions
+ on starting <application>Privoxy</application> and browser configuration,
+ see the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
+ on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
+ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
</para>
</sect2>
-</sect1>
-
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="notused">
+<title>I get a <quote>Privoxy is not being used</quote> dummy page although
+Privoxy is running and being used.</title>
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<para>
+ First, make sure that Privoxy is <emphasis>really</emphasis> running and
+ being used by visiting <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. You
+ should see the <application>Privoxy</application> main page. If not, see
+ the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
+ on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
+ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
+</para>
-<sect1 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
+<para>
+ Now if <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> works for you, but
+ other parts of <application>Privoxy</application>'s web interface show
+ the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered before
+ <application>Privoxy</application> was being used. You need to clear your
+ browser's cache. Note that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since
+ that'll only refresh the dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
+</para>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="getupdates"><title>Where can I get updated Actions Files?</title>
- <para>
- Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updated actions files will be
- made available on the <ulink
- url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">files section</ulink> of
- our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project page</ulink>.
- </para>
+<para>
+ The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
+ example, <application>Mozilla/Netscape</application> users would click
+ <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -->
+ <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
+ then click both <quote><guibutton>Clear Memory Cache</guibutton></quote>
+ and <quote><guibutton>Clear Disk Cache</guibutton></quote>.
+ In some <application>Firefox</application> versions it's
+ <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -->
+ <guibutton>Privacy</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
+ then click <quote><guibutton>Clear Cache Now</guibutton></quote>.
+ <!-- In my Firefox versions it's the Netscape way. fk 2007-11-19-->
+</para>
+</sect2>
- <para>
- If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
- <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
- url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
- to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
- </para>
+</sect1>
-</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
- <para>
- The syntax, number, and purpose of configuration files has substantially
- changed from <application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions
- of <application>Privoxy</application>. The old files, like <filename>blocklist</filename>
- will not work at all. If you are upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will
- need to port your configuration data to the new format. Note that even the
- pattern syntax has changed! Even configuration files from the 2.9.x versions
- will need to be adapted, as configuration syntax has been very much in flow
- in the 2.9.x series.
- </para>
-</sect2>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect1 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="actionsfile">What is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
+<title id="actionsfile">What exactly is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
<para>
+ &my-app; utilizes the concept of <quote>
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink></quote>
+ that are used to manipulate and control web page data.
<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">Actions files</ulink>
- are where
various <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink>
- that <application>Privoxy</application> might take while processing a certain
+ are where
these <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink>
+ that <application>Privoxy</application> could take while processing a certain
request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions
- that apply to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
+ that apply globally to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
+ There is a wide array of actions available that give the user a high degree
+ of control and flexibility on how to process each and every web page.
</para>
-
+
<para>
Actions can be defined on a <ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</ulink> basis, i.e.
for single URLs, whole web sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be
grouped together and then applied to requests matching one or more patterns.
There are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
- if you are blocking cookies as one of your default actions, but need to accept
- cookies from a given site, you would need to define an exception for this
- site in one of your actions files, preferably in <filename>user.action</filename>
+ if you are blocking <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
+ as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given site,
+ you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your actions
+ files, preferably in <filename>user.action</filename>.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="actionss">
-<title>The <quote>actions</quote> concept confuses me. Please list
+<title>The <quote>actions</quote> concept confuses me. Please list
some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
<para>
For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer
to the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions file
- chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
-
manual</ulink>. It includes a <ulink
+ chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User
+
Manual</ulink>. It includes a <ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">list of all actions</ulink>
and an <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions
file tutorial</ulink> to get you started.
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
<title id="actconfig">How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
-way to do this?</title>
+way to do this?</title>
<para>
Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited
at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
(Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and then select
<quote><ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View &
- change the current configuration</ulink></quote> from the menu.
+ change the current configuration</ulink></quote> from the menu. Note
+ that this feature must be explicitly enabled in the main config file
+ (see <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>).
</para>
</sect2>
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
<title>There are several different <quote>actions</quote> files. What are
the differences?</title>
<para>
- As of <application>Privoxy</application> v2.9.15, three actions files
- are being included, to be used for
- different purposes: These are
- <filename>default.action</filename>, the <quote>main</quote> actions file
- which is actively maintained by the <application>Privoxy</application>
- developers, <filename>user.action</filename>, where users are encouraged
- to make their private customizations, and <filename>standard.action</filename>,
- which is for internal <application>Privoxy</application> use only.
- Please see <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">the actions chapter</ulink>
- in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink> for a more
- detailed explanation.
+ Please have a look at the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">the actions chapter</ulink>
+ in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> for a detailed explanation.
</para>
-<para>
- Earlier versions included three different versions of the
- <filename>default.action</filename> file. The new scheme allows for
- greater flexibility of local configuration, and for browser based
- selection of pre-defined <quote>aggressiveness</quote> levels.
-</para>
+</sect2>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="getupdates"><title>Where can I get updated Actions Files?</title>
+ <para>
+ Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updates of
+ <filename>default.action</filename> will be
+ made available from time to time on the <ulink
+ url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">files section</ulink> of
+ our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project page</ulink>.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
+ <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
+ url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
+ to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
+ </para>
+
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
+ <para>
+ The syntax and purpose of configuration files has remained roughly the
+ same throughout the 3.x series, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.
+ Also each release contains updated, <quote>improved</quote> versions and it is
+ therefore strongly recommended to install the newer configuration files
+ and merge back your modifications.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="difficult">
+<title>Why is the configuration so complicated?</title>
+ <para>
+ <quote>Complicated</quote> is in the eye of the beholder. Those that are
+ familiar with some of the underlying concepts, such as regular expression
+ syntax, take to it like a fish takes to water. Also, software that tries
+ hard to be <quote>user friendly</quote>, often lacks sophistication and
+ flexibility. There is always that trade-off there between power vs.
+ easy-of-use. Furthermore, anyone is welcome to contribute ideas and
+ implementations to enhance &my-app;.
+ </para>
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/GMX account work?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?</title>
<para>
The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these services.
- It will, however, make all cookies temporary, so that your browser will forget your
+ It may, however, make all <ulink
+ url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
+ temporary, so that your browser will forget your
login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would like not to have to log
in manually each time you access those websites, simply turn off all cookie handling
for them in the <filename>user.action</filename> file. An example for yahoo might
{ -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink> }
.login.yahoo.com</screen>
</para>
+ <para>
+ These kinds of sites are often quite complex and heavy with
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> and
+ thus <quote>fragile</quote>. So if <emphasis>still</emphasis> a problem,
+ we have an <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> just for such
+ sticky situations:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen># Gmail is a _fragile_ site:
+#
+{ <literal>fragile</literal> }
+ # Gmail is ...
+ mail.google.com</screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Be sure to flush your browser's caches whenever making these kinds of
+ changes, just to make sure the changes <quote>take</quote>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Make sure the domain, host and path are appropriate as well. Your browser can
+ tell you where you are specifically and you should use that information for
+ your configuration settings. Note that above it is not referenced as
+ <literal>gmail.com</literal>, which is a valid domain name.
+ </para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configfiles"> <title>What's the difference between the
<quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> and <quote>Advanced</quote> defaults?</title>
<para>
- Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not entirely trivial. To help you get
- started, we provide you with three different default action <quote>packages</quote> in
- the web based actions file editor at <ulink
+ Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not entirely trivial. To
+ help you get started, we provide you with three different default action
+
<quote>profiles</quote> in the web based actions file editor at <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
- The following table shows you, which of the most important features are enabled in each
- configuration:
+ See the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html"><citetitle>User
+ Manual</citetitle></ulink> for a list of actions, and how the default
+ profiles are set.
</para>
- <para>
-<table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
-<tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
-<colspec colname=c1>
-<colspec colname=c2>
-<colspec colname=c3>
-<colspec colname=c4>
-<thead>
-<row>
- <entry>Feature</entry>
- <entry>Cautious</entry>
- <entry>Intermadiate</entry>
- <entry>Advanced</entry>
-</row>
-</thead>
-<!-- <tfoot> -->
-<!-- <row> -->
-<!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
-<!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
-<!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
-<!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
-<!-- </row> -->
-<!-- </tfoot> -->
-<tbody>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Ad-blocking by URL</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Referer forging</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
- <entry>none</entry>
- <entry>session-only</entry>
- <entry>kill</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>HTML taming</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Fun text replacements</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-<row>
- <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
-</row>
-
-
-</tbody>
-</tgroup>
-</table>
-</para>
+
<para>
Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for
known popular <quote>problem</quote> sites are included, but in
- general, the more aggressive your default settings are, the more
- exceptions you will have to make later. See the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink> for a more
- deatiled discussion.
+ general, the more aggressive your default settings are, the more exceptions
+ you will have to make later. New users are best to start off in
+ <quote>Cautious</quote> setting. This is safest and will have the fewest
+ problems. See the <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>
+ for a more detailed discussion.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ It should be noted that the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile (formerly known
+ as the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile) is more
+ aggressive, and will make use of some of
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> advanced features. Use at your own risk!
</para>
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration
with a browser? Does that not raise security issues?</title>
<para>
It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
When you use the browser-based editor, <application>Privoxy</application>
itself is writing to the config files. Because
<application>Privoxy</application> is running as the user <quote>privoxy</quote>,
- it can update the config files.
+ it can update its own config files.
</para>
<para>
If you run <application>Privoxy</application> for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in
- a LAN), you will probably want to turn the web-based editor and remote toggle
- features off by setting <quote><literal><ulink
+ a LAN) or aren't entirely in control of your own browser, you will probably want
+ to make sure that the web-based editor and remote toggle features are
+ <quote>off</quote> by setting <quote><literal><ulink
url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>
0</literal></quote> and <quote><literal><ulink
url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</ulink>
0</literal></quote> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
</para>
<para>
- Note that in the default configuration, only local users (i.e. those on
- <quote>localhost</quote>) can connect to <application>Privoxy</application>,
- so this is not (normally) a security problem.
+ As of &my-app; 3.0.7 these options are disabled by default.
</para>
</sect2>
<title id="filterfile">What is the <filename>default.filter</filename> file? What is a <quote>filter</quote>?</title>
<para>
The <ulink url="../user-manual/filter-file.html"><filename>default.filter</filename></ulink>
- file is where <emphasis>filters</emphasis> are defined, which can be used to modify or
- remove, web page content on the fly. Filters apply to <emphasis>anything</emphasis>
- in the page source, including HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used
- to accomplish this. There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common
- annoyances. The filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the
+ file is where <emphasis>filters</emphasis> as supplied by the developers are defined.
+ Filters are a special subset of actions that can be used to modify or
+ remove web page content or headers on the fly. Content filters can
+ be applied to <emphasis>anything</emphasis> in the page source,
+ header filters can be applied to either server or client headers.
+ Regular expressions are used to accomplish this.
+</para>
+<para>
+ There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common annoyances. The
+ filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the
<ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER"><literal>filter</literal>
- action</ulink> in one of the actions files. Filtering is automatically
- disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
+ action</ulink> in one of the actions files. Content filtering is automatically
+ disabled for inappropriate MIME types, but if you know better than Privoxy
+ what should or should not be filtered you can filter any content you like.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Filters should
+ <emphasis>not</emphasis> be confused with <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK"><literal>blocks</literal></ulink>, which
+ is a completely different action, and is more typically used to block ads and
+ unwanted sites.
</para>
<para>
- If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
+ If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and define
your own filters. This is potentially a very powerful feature, but
- requires some expertise in both regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
+ requires some expertise in both regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
+ <![%p-newstuff;[ You should
+ place any modifications to the default filters, or any new ones you create
+ in a separate file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>, so they won't
+ be overwritten during upgrades.
+ The ability to define multiple filter files
+ in <filename>config</filename> is a new feature as of v. 3.0.5.]]>
</para>
<para>
- Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
- but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
+ There is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
+ but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
<filename>default.filter</filename> file with the <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
+ Note that the custom actions editor must be explicitly enabled in
+ the main config file (see <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>).
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ If you intend to develop your own filters, you might want to have a look at
+ <ulink
+ url="http://www.fabiankeil.de/sourcecode/pft/">Privoxy-Filter-Test</ulink>.
</para>
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="lanconfig">How can I set up <application>Privoxy</application> to act as a proxy for my
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lanconfig">
+<title>How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my
LAN?</title>
<para>
- By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
+ By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
from <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> (localhost). To have it act as a server for
a network, this needs to be changed in the <ulink
url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>. Look for
</para>
<para>
- Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
+ Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
all browsers on the network then to use this address and port number.
</para>
+<para>
+ Alternately, you can have <application>Privoxy</application> listen on
+ all available interfaces:
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ <screen>
+ listen-address :8118</screen>
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ And then use <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#PERMIT-ACCESS">permit-access</ulink>
+ feature to limit connections. A firewall in this situation is recommended
+ as well.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ The above steps should be the same for any TCP network, regardless of
+ operating system.
+</para>
+
<para>
If you run <application>Privoxy</application> on a LAN with untrusted users,
we recommend that you double-check the <ulink
<para>
If you want to see nothing, then change the <ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
- action</ulink> to <quote>blank</quote>. This can be done by editing the
- <filename>
default.action</filename> file, or trough the <ulink
+ action</ulink> to <quote>blank</quote>. This can be done by editing the
+ <filename>
user.action</filename> file, or through the <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
</para>
<title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?</title>
<para>
Remember that <link linkend="whatsanad">telling which image is an ad and which
- isn't</link>, is mostly guesswork. While we hope that the standard configuration
- is rather smart, it can and will make errors. The checkerboard image is visually
- decent, but it shows you that and where images were blocked, which can be very
+ isn't</link>, is an educated guess. While we hope that the standard configuration
+ is rather smart, it will make occasional mistakes. The checkerboard image is visually
+ decent, and it shows you where images have been blocked, which can be very
helpful in case some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was
- erraneously blocked. Some people might also enjoy seeing how many banners
- they <emphasis>don't</emphasis> have to see..
-</para>
-
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- This has changed with the adaptive "blocked" page
-
-<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="blockedisugly">I see large red banners on some pages that say
-<quote>Blocked</quote>. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
-<para>
- These are URLs that match something in one of
- <application>Privoxy's</application> block actions
- (<ulink
- url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink>).
- It is meant to be a warning so that you know something has been blocked and
- an easy way for you to see why. These are handled differently than what has
- been defined explicitly as <quote>images</quote> (e.g. ads that are GIF image
- files). Depending on the URL itself, it is sometimes hard for
- <application>Privoxy</application> to really know whether there is indeed an
- ad image there or not. And there are limitations as to what
- <application>Privoxy</application> can do to <quote>fool</quote> the
- browser.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- For instance, if the ad is in a frame, then it is embedded in the separate
- HTML page used for the frame. In this case, you cannot just substitute an
- aribitrary image (like we would for a <quote>blank</quote> image), for an HTML
- page. The browser is expecting an HTML page, and that is what it must have
- for frames. Such situations can be a little trickier to deal with, and
- <application>Privoxy</application> may show the <quote>Blocked</quote> page,
- despite your best efforts.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- If you want these to be treated as if they were images, so that they can be
- made invisible, you can try moving the offending URL from the
- <quote>+block</quote> section to the <quote>+imageblock</quote> section of
- your actions file. Just be forewarned, if any URL is made
- <quote>invisible</quote>, you may not have any inkling that something has
- been removed from that page, or why. If this approach does not work, then you are
- probably dealing with a frame (or <quote>ilayer</quote>), and the only thing
- that can go there is an HTML page of some sort.
-</para>
-<para>
- To deal with this situation, you could modify the
- <quote><filename>block</filename></quote> HTML template that is used by
- <application>Privoxy</application> to display this, and make it something
- more to your liking. Currently, there is no configuration option for this.
- You will have to modify, or create your own page, and use this to replace
- <filename>templates/blocked</filename>, which is what
- <application>Privoxy</application> uses to display the <quote>Blocked</quote>
- page.
-</para>
-<para>
- Another way to deal with this is find why and where
- <application>Privoxy</application> is blocking the frame, and
- diable this. Then let the <quote>+set-image-blocker</quote> action
- handle the ad that is embedded in the frame's HTML page.
-</para>
-
-</sect2>
-
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="alliseeisred">
-<title>I cannot see all of the <quote>Blocked</quote> page banner. Help.</title>
-<para>
- There is not enough available space to fit the entire Blocked page. Try right
- clicking on the visible portion, and select <quote>Show Frame</quote>,
- or equivalent. This will usually allow you to see the entire Privoxy
- <quote>Blocked</quote> page, and from there you can see just what is being
- blocked, and why.
+ erroneously blocked. It is recommended for new users so they can
+ <quote>see</quote> what is happening. Some people might also enjoy seeing how
+ many banners they <emphasis>don't</emphasis> have to see.
</para>
-<para>
- As of Privoxy 2.9.14, the Blocked banner page is re-sizeable, and tries
- to adjust to the allotted space. There may be occassions where there
- just isn't enough room to display much of anything useful though.
-</para>
</sect2>
--->
-
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="blockedbytext">I see some images being replaced by a text
+<title id="blockedbytext">I see some images being replaced with text
instead of the checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
<para>
This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the
or (i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images
they get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image,
which wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts
- only HTML when it has requested an HTML document.
+ only HTML when it has requested an HTML document.
</para>
<para>
The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="srvany">
-<title>Can <application>Privoxy</application> run as a service
-on Win2K/NT?</title>
+<title>Can Privoxy run as a service
+on Win2K/NT/XP?</title>
<para>
- Yes, it can run as a system service using <command>srvany.exe</command>.
- The only catch is that this will effectively disable the
- <application>Privoxy</application> icon (and its menu!) in the taskbar. You can have
- one or the other, but not both at this time :(
+<![%p-newstuff;[
+ Yes. Version 3.0.5 introduces full <application>Windows</application> service
+ functionality. See <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html#installation-pack-win">
+ the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink> for details on how to install and configure
+ <application>Privoxy</application> as a service.
</para>
<para>
- There is a pending feature request for this functionality. See the discussion
- at <ulink
- url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118</ulink>,
+ Earlier ]]>3.x versions could run as a system service using <command>srvany.exe</command>.
+
See the discussion at <ulink
+ url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118</ulink>,
for details, and a sample configuration.
-
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherproxy">
-<title>How can I make <application>Privoxy</application> work with other
-proxies like <application>Squid</application>?</title>
+<title>How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies?</title>
<para>
This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of
- <application>Privoxy</application> with those of a caching proxy.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> with those of a another proxy,
+ for example to cache content.
See the <ulink
url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
- in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink> which
- describes how to do this.
+ in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> which
+ describes how to do this. If you intend to use Privoxy with Tor,
+ please also have a look at
+ <link linkend="TOR">How do I use Privoxy together with Tor</link>.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="port-80">
-<title>Can I just set <application>Privoxy</application> to use port 80
+<title>Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80
and thus avoid individual browser configuration?</title>
<para>
- No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds
- of proxies known as <quote>transparent</quote> proxies (see below).
+ No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds
+ of proxies known as <quote>intercepting</quote> proxies
+ (<link linkend="INTERCEPTING">see below</link>).
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="transparent">
-<title>Can <application>Privoxy</application> run as a <quote>transparent
+<title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>transparent
</quote> proxy?</title>
<para>
- No, <application>Privoxy</application> currently does not have this ability,
- though it is planned for a future release. Transparent proxies require
- special handling of the request headers beyond what
- <application>Privoxy</application> is now capable of.
+ The whole idea of Privoxy is to modify client requests
+ and server responses in all sorts of ways and therefore
+ it's not a transparent proxy as described in
+ <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616">RFC 2616</ulink>.
</para>
-
<para>
- Chaining <application>Privoxy</application> behind another proxy that has
- this ability should work though.
- See the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
- in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink>. As
- a transparent proxy to be used for chaining we recommend Transproxy
- (<ulink url="http://www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/">http://www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/</ulink>).
+ However, some people say <quote>transparent proxy</quote> when they
+ mean <quote>intercepting proxy</quote>. If you are one of them,
+ please read the <link linkend="INTERCEPTING">next entry</link>.
</para>
</sect2>
-</sect1>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="intercepting">
+<title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>intercepting</quote> proxy?</title>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> can't intercept traffic itself,
+ but it can handle requests that where intercepted and redirected
+ with a packet filter (like <application>PF</application> or
+ <application>iptables</application>), as long as the <literal>Host</literal>
+ header is present.
+ </para>
+<para>
+ As the <literal>Host</literal> header is required by HTTP/1.1 and as most
+ web sites rely on it anyway, this limitation shouldn't be a problem.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Please refer to your packet filter's documentation to learn how to
+ intercept and redirect traffic into <application>Privoxy</application>.
+ Afterward you just have to configure <application>Privoxy</application> to
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCEPT-INTERCEPTED-REQUESTS">accept
+ intercepted requests</ulink>.
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook">
+<title>How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook?</title>
+<para>
+ Versions of <application>Outlook</application> prior to Office 2007, use
+ <application>Internet Explorer</application> components to both render HTML,
+ and fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email. So however
+ you have <application>Privoxy</application> configured to work with IE, this
+ configuration should automatically be shared, at least with older version of
+ Internet Explorer.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Starting with Office 2007, Microsoft is instead using the MS-Word rendering
+ engine with Outlook. It is unknown whether this can be configured to use a
+ proxy.
+ <!-- FIXME HB 2009-02-15 -->
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook-more">
+<title>How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?</title>
+<para>
+ The short answer is, you can't. <application>Privoxy</application> has no way
+ of knowing which particular application makes a request, so there is no way to
+ distinguish between web pages and HTML mail.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> just blindly proxies all requests. In the
+ case of <application>Outlook Express</application> (see above), OE uses
+ IE anyway, and there is no way for <application>Privoxy</application> to ever
+ be able to distinguish between them (nor could any other proxy type application for
+ that matter).
+</para>
+<para>
+ For a good discussion of some of the issues involved (including privacy and
+ security issues), see
+ <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118</ulink>.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="sneaky-cookies">
+<title>I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?</title>
+<para>
+ <ulink
+ url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Cookies</ulink> can be
+ set in several ways. The classic method is via the
+ <literal>Set-Cookie</literal> HTTP header. This is straightforward, and an
+ easy one to manipulate, such as the &my-app; concept of
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink>.
+ There is also the possibility of using
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> to
+ set cookies (&my-app; calls these <literal>content-cookies</literal>). This
+ is trickier because the syntax can vary widely, and thus requires a certain
+ amount of guesswork. It is not realistic to catch all of these short of
+ disabling Javascript, which would break many sites. And lastly, if the
+ cookies are embedded in a HTTPS/SSL secure session via Javascript, they are beyond
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> reach.
+</para>
+<para>
+ All in all, &my-app; can help manage cookies in general, can help minimize
+ the loss of privacy posed by cookies, but can't realistically stop all
+ cookies.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="evil-cookies">
+<title>Are all cookies bad? Why?</title>
+<para>
+ No, in fact there are many beneficial uses of
+ <ulink
+ url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>. Cookies are just a
+ method that browsers can use to store data between pages, or between browser
+ sessions. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, and the user's life is a
+ bit easier as a result. But there is a long history of some websites taking
+ advantage of this layer of trust, and using the data they glean from you and
+ your browsing habits for their own purposes, and maybe to your potential
+ detriment. Such sites are using you and storing their data on your system.
+ That is why the privacy conscious watch from whom those cookies come, and why
+ they really <emphasis>need</emphasis> to be there.
+</para>
+<para>
+ See the
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Wikipedia cookie
+ definition</ulink> for more.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allow-cookies">
+<title>How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?</title>
+
+<para>
+ There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
+ allow only <quote>session cookies</quote>, which means the cookies only last
+ for the current browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related
+ to cookies. But there may be cases where you want cookies to last.
+</para>
+<para>
+ To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted,
+ both in and out, for <literal>example.com</literal>:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+ { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
+ .example.com</screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ Place the above in <filename>user.action</filename>. Note that some of these may
+ be off by default anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm
+ being explicit in what you want to happen. <filename>user.action</filename>
+ includes an alias for this situation, called
+ <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal>.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="multiples">
+<title>Can I have separate configurations for different users?</title>
+<para>
+ Each instance of <application>Privoxy</application> has its own
+ configuration, including such attributes as the TCP port that it listens on.
+ What you can do is run multiple instances of <application>Privoxy</application>, each with
+ a unique
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
+ configuration setting, and configuration path, and then
+ each of these can have their own configurations. Think of it as per-port
+ configuration.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider having
+ groups of users that might share like configurations.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whitelists">
+<title>Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of
+<quote>good</quote> sites?</title>
+<para>
+ Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple white-listing.
+ Here's one real easy one:
+</para>
+ <screen>
+ ############################################################
+ # Blacklist
+ ############################################################
+ { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">+block</ulink> }
+ / # Block *all* URLs
+
+ ############################################################
+ # Whitelist
+ ############################################################
+ { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
+ kids.example.com
+ toys.example.com
+ games.example.com</screen>
+<para>
+ This allows access to only those three sites by first blocking all URLs, and
+ then subsequently allowing three specific exceptions.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Another approach is <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ <literal>trustfile</literal> concept, which incorporates the notion of
+ <quote>trusted referrers</quote>. See the <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#TRUSTFILE">Trust documentation</ulink>
+ for details.
+</para>
+<para>
+ These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There
+ are various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
+ elsewhere here and in <ulink url="../user-manual/">the User Manual</ulink>)
+ so that users can't modify their own configuration and easily circumvent the
+ whitelist.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="no-adblock">
+<title>How can I turn off ad-blocking?</title>
+<para>
+ Ad blocking is achieved through a complex application of various &my-app;
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions</ulink>. These
+ actions are deployed against simple images, banners, flash animations,
+ text pages, JavaScript, pop-ups and pop-unders, etc., so its not as simple as
+ just turning one or two actions off. The various actions that make up
+ &my-app; ad blocking are hard-coded into the default configuration files. It
+ has been assumed that everyone using &my-app; is interested in this
+ particular feature.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you want to do without this, there are several approaches you can take:
+ You can manually undo the many block rules in
+ <filename>default.action</filename>. Or even easier, just create your own
+ <filename>default.action</filename> file from scratch without the many ad
+ blocking rules, and corresponding exceptions. Or lastly, if you are not
+ concerned about the additional blocks that are done for privacy reasons, you
+ can very easily over-ride <emphasis>all</emphasis> blocking with the
+ following very simple rule in your <filename>user.action</filename>:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ # Unblock everybody, everywhere
+ { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
+ / # UN-Block *all* URLs</screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ Or even a more comprehensive reversing of various ad related actions:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+ # Unblock everybody, everywhere, and turn off appropriate filtering, etc
+ { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> \
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">-filter{banners-by-size}</ulink> \
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">-filter{banners-by-link}</ulink> \
+ <literal>allow-popups</literal> \
+ }
+ / # UN-Block *all* URLs and allow ads</screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ This last <quote>action</quote> in this compound statement,
+ <literal>allow-popups</literal>, is an <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> that disables
+ various pop-up blocking features.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="templates">
+<title>How can I have custom template pages, like the
+<emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
+<para>
+ &my-app; <quote>templates</quote> are specialized text files utilized by
+ &my-app; for various purposes and can easily be modified using any text
+ editor. All the template pages are installed in a sub-directory appropriately
+ named: <filename>templates</filename>. Knowing something about HTML syntax
+ will of course be helpful.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Be forewarned that the default templates are subject to being overwritten
+ during upgrades. You can, however, create completely new templates,
+ place them in another directory and specify the alternate path in the main
+ <filename>config</filename>. For details, have a look at the <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#templdir">templdir</ulink> option.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blockall">
+<title>How can I remove the <quote>Go There Anyway</quote> link from
+the <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
+<para>
+ There is more than one way to do it (although Perl is not involved).
+</para>
+<para>
+ Editing the BLOCKED template page (see above) may dissuade some users, but
+ this method is easily circumvented. Where you need this level of control, you
+ might want to build &my-app; from source, and disable various features that are
+ available as compile-time options. You should
+ <command>configure</command> the sources as follows:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+ ./configure --disable-toggle --disable-editor --disable-force</screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ This will create an executable with hard-coded security features so that
+ &my-app; does not allow easy bypassing of blocked sites, or changing the
+ current configuration via any connected user's web browser.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Finally, all of these features can also be toggled on/off via options in
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> main <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">config</ulink> file which
+ means you don't have to recompile anything.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+</sect1>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<sect1 id="misc"><title>Miscellaneous</title>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="slowsme">How much does <application>Privoxy</application> slow my browsing down? This
+<title id="slowsme">How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This
has to add extra time to browsing.</title>
<para>
- It should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
- speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not being displayed.
- The actual processing time required by <application>Privoxy</application>
- itself for each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of things,
- and happens very quickly. This is typically more than offset by time saved
- not downloading and rendering ad images.
+ How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the host
+ system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions are being triggered,
+ the size of the page, the bandwidth of the connection, etc.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
+ speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically being
+ retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by
+ <application>Privoxy</application> itself for each page, is relatively small
+ in the overall scheme of things, and happens very quickly. This is typically
+ more than offset by time saved not downloading and rendering ad images and
+ other junk content (if ad blocking is being used).
</para>
<para>
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> or
<literal><ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
- actions may cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document needs to be buffered
- before displaying. See below.
+ actions may cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document
+ needs to be buffered before displaying. And on very large documents,
+ filtering may have some measurable impact. How much depends on the page size,
+ the actual definition of the filter(s), etc. See below. Most other actions
+ have little to no impact on speed.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Also, when filtering is enabled but zlib support isn't available, compression
+ is often disabled (see <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>).
+ This can have an impact on speed as well, although it's probably smaller than
+ you might think. Again, the page size, etc. will determine how much of an impact.
</para>
</sect2>
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="loadingtimes"><title>I noticed considerable
-delays in page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. What's wrong?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="loadingtimes"><title>I notice considerable
+delays in page requests. What's wrong?</title>
<para>
If you use any <literal><ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> action,
such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc, or the <literal><ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
- action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
+ action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser during this time.
</para>
<para>
- The loading time does not really change in real numbers, but the feeling is
- different, because most browsers are able to start rendering incomplete
- content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is especially
- noticeable on slow dialup connections.
+ The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers, but
+ the feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start rendering
+ incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is
+ more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely large documents
+ may have some impact on the time to load the page where there is filtering
+ being done. But overall, the difference should be very minimal. If there is a
+ big impact, then probably some other situation is contributing (like
+ anti-virus software).
</para>
<para>
- Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
-
+ Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note
+ that if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should
+ not be filtered, could be. <application>Privoxy</application> only knows how
+ to differentiate filterable content because of the MIME type as reported by
+ the server, or because of some configuration setting that enables/disables
+ filtering.
</para>
</sect2>
-
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configurl"><title>What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and
"http://p.p/"?</title>
<para>
<ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink> is the
- address of <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in user interface, and
+ address of <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in user interface, and
<ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> is a shortcut for it.
</para>
<para>
- Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet,
+ Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet,
it can simply intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in
<quote>web server</quote>.
</para>
<para>
This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
- takes you to a page saying <quote>This is Privoxy..</quote>, everything is OK.
+ takes you to a page saying <quote>This is Privoxy ...</quote>, everything is OK.
If you get a page saying <quote>Privoxy is not working</quote> instead, then
your browser didn't use <application>Privoxy</application> for the request,
hence it could not be intercepted, and you have accessed the <emphasis>real</emphasis>
web site at config.privoxy.org.
</para>
-<para>
- With recent versions of <application>Privoxy</application> (version 2.9.x and
- later), the user interface features information on the run time status, the
- configuration, and even a built-in editor for the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>.
-</para>
-<para>
- Note that the built-in URLs from earlier versions of <application>Junkbuster</application>
- / <application>Privoxy</application>, http://example.com/show-proxy-args and http://i.j.b/,
- are no longer supported. If you still use such an old version, you should really consider
- upgrading to &p-version;.
-</para>
</sect2>
<!--
-FIXME: commented out until we have data. HB 03/18/02.
-
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="badfiledesc"><title>I get the message 'Bad File Descriptor', why?</title>
-<para>
- Fill me.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
--->
-
+ out of date 09/02/06 HB
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blocklist"><title>Do you still maintain the blocklists?</title>
<para>
No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>, which are
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>, which are
actively maintained instead. See next question ...
</para>
</sect2>
+-->
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads, or report
+problems?</title>
+<para>
+Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> for
+various ways to interact with the developers.
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads2"><title>If I do submit missed ads, will
+they be included in future updates?</title>
+<para>
+ Whether such submissions are eventually included in the
+ <filename>default.action</filename> configuration file depends on how
+ significant the issue is. We of course want to address any potential
+ problem with major, high-profile sites such as <citetitle>Google</citetitle>,
+ <citetitle>Yahoo</citetitle>, etc. Any site with global or regional reach,
+ has a good chance of being a candidate. But at the other end of the spectrum
+ are any number of smaller, low-profile sites such as for local clubs or
+ schools. Since their reach and impact are much less, they are best handled by
+ inclusion in the user's <filename>user.action</filename>, and thus would be
+ unlikely to be included.
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
+
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads?</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="noonecares"><title>Why doesn't anyone answer my support
+request?</title>
<para>
-Yes, absolutely! Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> for
-how to do that. Please note that you (technically) need the latest
-<application>Privoxy</application> version for this to work.
+Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
+could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it, no
+one has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported
+numerous times already, or because not enough information was provided to help
+us help you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
</para>
</sect2>
+
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ip"><title>How can I hide my IP address?</title>
<para>
- If you run both the browser and the proxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
- address with <application>Privoxy</application> or any other software. The
- server needs to know your IP address to send the answers back to you.
+ If you run both the browser and &my-app; locally, you cannot hide your IP
+ address with <application>Privoxy</application> or ultimately any other
+ software alone. The server needs to know your IP address so that it knows
+ where to send the responses back.
</para>
<para>
- Fortunately there are many publicly usable anonymous proxies out there, which
- solve the problem by providing a further level of indirection between you and
- the web server, shared by many people, and thus letting your requests "drown"
- in white noise of unrelated requests as far as user tracking is concerned.
+ There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which
+ provide a further level of indirection between you and the web server.
</para>
<para>
- Most of them will, however, log your IP address and make it available to the
- authorities in case you abuse that anonymity for criminal purposes. In fact
+ However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need
+ to authenticate, not because they would offer any real anonymity.
+ Most of them will log your IP address and make it available to the
+ authorities in case you violate the law of the country they run in. In fact
you can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information
on (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
</para>
<para>
- You can find a list of anonymous public proxies at <ulink
- url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">multiproxy.org</ulink> and many
- more through Google. A particularly interesting project is the JAP service
- offered by the Technical University of Dresden (<ulink
- url="http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html">http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html</ulink>.
-</para>
-<para>
- There is, however, even in the single-machine case the possibility to make the
- server believe that your machine is in fact a shared proxy serving a whole big
- LAN, and we are looking into that.
+ If you want to hide your IP address from most adversaries,
+ you should consider chaining <application>Privoxy</application>
+ with <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</ulink>.
+ The configuration details can be found in
+ <ulink url="#TOR">How do I use <application>Privoxy</application> together
+ with <application>Tor</application> section</ulink>
+ just below.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="anonforsure">Can <application>Privoxy</application> guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
+<title id="anonforsure">Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
<para>
- No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
- are an expert on Internet security it would be safest to assume that
- everything you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
+ No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are improved, but unless you
+ <ulink url="#TOR">chain <application>Privoxy</application> with <application>Tor</application></ulink>
+ or a similar proxy and know what you're doing when it comes to configuring
+ the rest of your system, you should assume that everything you do
+ on the Web can be traced back to you.
</para>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application> can remove various information about you,
- and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
- you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But it's still possible
- that web sites can find out who you are. Here's one way this can happen.
+ and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
+ you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But it neither
+ hides your IP address, nor can it guarantee that the rest of the system
+ behaves correctly. There are several possibilities how a web sites can find
+ out who you are, even if you are using a strict <application>Privoxy</application>
+ configuration and chained it with <application>Tor</application>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Most of <application>Privoxy's</application> privacy-enhancing features can be easily subverted
+ by an insecure browser configuration, therefore you should use a browser that can
+ be configured to only execute code from trusted sites, and be careful which sites you trust.
+ For example there is no point in having <application>Privoxy</application>
+ modify the User-Agent header, if websites can get all the information they want
+ through JavaScript, ActiveX, Flash, Java etc.
</para>
<para>
A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such
</sect2>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3">
+<title id="proxytest">A test site says I am not using a Proxy.</title>
+<para>
+ Good! Actually, they are probably testing for some other kinds of proxies.
+ Hiding yourself completely would require additional steps.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="tor"><title>How do I use Privoxy
+ together with Tor?</title>
+<para>
+ Before you configure <application>Privoxy</application> to use
+ <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</ulink>,
+ please follow the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> chapters
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">2. Installation</ulink> and
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">5. Startup</ulink> to make sure
+ <application>Privoxy</application> itself is setup correctly.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If it is, refer to <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html">Tor's
+ extensive documentation</ulink> to learn how to install <application>Tor</application>,
+ and make sure <application>Tor</application>'s logfile says that
+ <quote>Tor has successfully opened a circuit</quote> and it
+ <quote>looks like client functionality is working</quote>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If either <application>Tor</application> or <application>Privoxy</application>
+ isn't working, their combination most likely will neither. Testing them on their
+ own will also help you to direct problem reports to the right audience.
+ If <application>Privoxy</application> isn't working, don't bother the
+ <application>Tor</application> developers. If <application>Tor</application>
+ isn't working, don't send bug reports to the <application>Privoxy</application> Team.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you verified that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>Tor</application>
+ are working, it is time to connect them. As far as <application>Privoxy</application>
+ is concerned, <application>Tor</application> is just another proxy that can be reached
+ by socks4, socks4a and socks5. Most likely you are interested in <application>Tor</application>
+ to increase your anonymity level, therefore you should use socks5, to make sure DNS
+ requests are done through <application>Tor</application> and thus invisible to your
+ local network. Using socks4a would work too, but with socks5 you get more precise error
+ messages.
+</para>
+
+<![%p-newstuff;[
+<para>
+ Since <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.5, its
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>
+ is already prepared for <application>Tor</application>, if you are using a
+ default <application>Tor</application> configuration and run it on the same
+ system as &my-app;, you just have to edit the
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding section</ulink>
+ and uncomment the line:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+# forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
+ </screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ This is enough to reach the Internet, but additionally you might want to
+ uncomment the following forward rules, to make sure your local network is still
+ reachable through Privoxy:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+# forward 192.168.*.*/ .
+# forward 10.*.*.*/ .
+# forward 127.*.*.*/ .
+ </screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will
+ be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the alternative is
+ that your browser can't reach the network at all. Then again,
+ that may actually be desired and if you don't know for sure
+ that your browser has to be able to reach the local network,
+ there's no reason to allow it.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you want your browser to be able to reach servers in your local
+ network by using their names, you will need additional exceptions
+ that look like this:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+# forward localhost/ .
+ </screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ Save the modified configuration file and open
+ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status/</ulink>
+ in your browser, confirm that <application>Privoxy</application> has reloaded its configuration
+ and that there are no other forward lines, unless you know that you need them. If everything looks good,
+ refer to
+ <ulink url="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#IsMyConnectionPrivate">Tor
+ Faq 4.2</ulink> to learn how to verify that you are really using <application>Tor</application>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Afterward, please take the time to at least skim through the rest
+ of <application>Tor's</application> documentation. Make sure you understand
+ what <application>Tor</application> does, why it is no replacement for
+ application level security, and why you probably don't want to
+ use it for unencrypted logins.
+</para> ]]>
+</sect2>
+
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
<title id="sitebreak">Might some things break because header information or
content is being altered?</title>
<para>
- Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what to
- display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be handled,
+ Definitely. It is common for sites to use browser type, browser version,
+ HTTP header content, and various other techniques in order to dynamically
+ decide what to display and how to display it. What you see, and what I see,
+ might be very different. There are many, many ways that this can be handled,
so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
</para>
<para>
- <quote>User-Agent</quote> in particular is often used in this way to identify
- the browser, and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now (at least not
- further than removing the OS information) is not recommended, since so many
- sites do look for it. You may get undesirable results by changing this.
+ The <quote>User-Agent</quote> is sometimes used in this way to identify
+ the browser, and adjust content accordingly.
</para>
<para>
- For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
+ Also, different browsers use different encodings of non-English
characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the
User Agent header. Giving a <quote>User Agent</quote> with the wrong
operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in these languages
weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their server when no
<quote>Referer</quote> or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
can forge both headers without giving information away). There are
- many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
+ many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server. The
+ results of which could inadvertently cause pages to load incorrectly,
+ partially, or even not at all. And there may be no obvious clues as to just
+ what went wrong, or why. Nowhere will there be a message that says
+ <quote><emphasis>Turn off <literal>fast-redirects</literal> or else!</emphasis>
+ </quote>
</para>
<para>
</para>
<para>
- If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
- accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
+ If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
+ accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
be required, but by no means the only one.
</para>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="caching">Can <application>Privoxy</application> act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
+<title id="caching">Can Privoxy act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
speed up web browsing?</title>
<para>
- No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
- <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> for this. And, yes,
- before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
+ No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
+ <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> or
+ <ulink url="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</ulink> for this.
+ And, yes, before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
with other kinds of proxies like <application>Squid</application>.
See the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding
chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can <application>Privoxy</application> protect me?</title>
-<para>
- Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can.
- <application>Privoxy</application> can help protect your privacy, but not
- protect you from intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible
- and recommended to use <emphasis>both</emphasis>.
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- No longer needed
-<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="logo">The <application>Privoxy</application> logo that replaces ads is very blocky
-and ugly looking. Can't a better font be used?</title>
-
+<title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?</title>
<para>
- This is not a font problem. The logo is an image that is created by
- <application>Privoxy</application> on the fly. So as to not waste
- memory, the image is rather small. The blockiness comes when the
- image is scaled to fill a largish area. There is not much to be done
- about this, other than to use one of the other
- <quote>imageblock</quote> directives: <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>,
- <emphasis>blank</emphasis>, or a URL of your choosing.
-</para>
-<para>
-Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option entirely
-[as of v2.9.13].
+ Not in the way you mean, or in the way some firewall vendors claim they can.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> can help protect your privacy, but can't
+ protect your system from intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible
+ to use <emphasis>both</emphasis>.
</para>
</sect2>
--->
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
<title id="wasted">I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where
ads used to be. Why?</title>
<para>
- It would be technically possible eliminate the banners in a way that frees
- their screen estate in many cases, by doing all banner blocking with filters,
- i.e. eliminating the whole image references from the HTML pages instead
- of letting them stay in, and blocking the resulting requests for the
- banners themselves.
+ It is technically possible to eliminate banners and ads in a way that frees
+ their allocated page space. This could easily be done by blocking with
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> filters,
+ and eliminating the <emphasis>entire</emphasis> image references from the
+ HTML page source.
+</para>
+<para>
+ But, this would consume considerably more CPU resources (IOW, slow things
+ down), would likely destroy the layout of some web pages which rely on the
+ banners utilizing a certain amount of page space, and might fail in other
+ cases, where the screen space is reserved (e.g. by HTML tables for instance).
+ Also, making ads and banners disappear without any trace complicates
+ troubleshooting, and would sooner or later be problematic.
</para>
<para>
- But this would consume considerable CPU resources, would likely destroy
- the layout of many web pages which rely on the banners consuming a certain
- amount of screen space, and would fail in other cases, where the screen space
- is reserved e.g. by tables anyway. Also, making the banners disappear without
- a visual trace complicates troubleshooting.
+ The better alternative is to instead let them stay, and block the resulting
+ requests for the banners themselves as is now the case. This leaves either
+ empty space, or the familiar checkerboard pattern.
</para>
<para>
- So we won't support this in the default configuration, but you can of course
- define appropriate filters yourself.
+ So the developers won't support this in the default configuration, but you
+ can of course define appropriate filters yourself to achieve this.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="ssl">How can <application>Privoxy</application> filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
+<title id="ssl">How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
<para>
Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably <emphasis>secure</emphasis>,
As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often
the banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless
- for efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of
+ for efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of
<application>Privoxy</application>'s ad blocking.
</para>
+<para>
+ <quote>Content cookies</quote> (those that are embedded in the actual HTML or
+ JS page content, see <literal><ulink
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</ulink></literal>),
+ in an SSL transaction will be impossible to block under these conditions.
+ Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very common scenario since most
+ cookies come by traditional means.
+</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="secure"><application>Privoxy</application> runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
+<title id="secure">Privoxy runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
secure is it? Do I need to take any special precautions?</title>
<para>
- There are no known exploits that might affect
- <application>Privoxy</application>. On Unix-like systems,
- <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
- user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
- <application>Privoxy</application> only listens to requests
- from <quote>localhost</quote> only. The server aspect of
- <application>Privoxy</application> is not itself directly exposed to the
- Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
+ On Unix-like systems, <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
+ user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
+ <application>Privoxy</application> listens to requests from <quote>localhost</quote>
+ only.
+</para>
+<para>
+ The server aspect of <application>Privoxy</application> is not itself directly
+ exposed to the Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
<application>Privoxy</application> serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to
be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
- you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main
+ you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main
<application>Privoxy</application> configuration file and check all <ulink
url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security
options</ulink>. All LAN hosts can then use this as their proxy address
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff">
-<title>How can I temporarily disable <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
+<title>Can I temporarily disable Privoxy?</title>
+<para>
+ &my-app; doesn't have a transparent proxy mode,
+ but you can toggle off blocking and content filtering.
+</para>
<para>
- The easiest way is to access <application>Privoxy</application> with your
-
browser by using the remote toggle URL: <ulink
+ The easiest way to do that is to point your browser
+
to the remote toggle URL: <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>.
- See the <ulink url="../user-manual/appendix.html#BOOKMARKLETS">Bookmarklets section</ulink>
- of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for an easy way to access this
- feature.
+</para>
+<para>
+ See the <ulink url="../user-manual/appendix.html#BOOKMARKLETS">Bookmarklets section</ulink>
+ of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for an easy way to access this
+ feature. Note that this is a feature that may need to be enabled in the main
+ <filename>config</filename> file.
</para>
</sect2>
+
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="reallyoff">
-<title>When <quote>disabled</quote> is <application>Privoxy</application> totally
+<title>When <quote>disabled</quote> is Privoxy totally
out of the picture?</title>
<para>
- No, this just means all filtering and actions are disabled.
- <application>Privoxy</application> is still acting as a proxy, but just not
- doing any of the things that <application>Privoxy</application> would
- normally be expected to do. It is still a <quote>middle-man</quote> in
- the interaction between your browser and web sites.
+ No, this just means all optional filtering and actions are disabled.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is still acting as a proxy, but just
+ doing less of the things that <application>Privoxy</application> would
+ normally be expected to do. It is still a <quote>middle-man</quote> in
+ the interaction between your browser and web sites. See below to bypass
+ the proxy.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff2">
+<title>How can I tell Privoxy to totally ignore certain sites?</title>
+<para>
+ Bypassing a proxy, or proxying based on arbitrary criteria, is purely a browser
+ configuration issue, not a &my-app; issue. Modern browsers typically do have
+ settings for not proxying certain sites. Check your browser's help files.
</para>
</sect2>
+
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="crunch">
-<title>My logs show <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>crunches</quote>
-ads, but also its own CGI pages. What is a <quote>crunch</quote>?</title>
+<title>My logs show Privoxy <quote>crunches</quote>
+ads, but also its own internal CGI pages. What is a <quote>crunch</quote>?</title>
<para>
- A <quote>crunch</quote> simply means <application>Privoxy</application> intercepted
+ A <quote>crunch</quote> simply means <application>Privoxy</application> intercepted
<emphasis>something</emphasis>, nothing more. Often this is indeed ads or
banners, but <application>Privoxy</application> uses the same mechanism for
trapping requests for its own internal pages. For instance, a request for
configuration is returned to the browser, and the log consequently will show
a <quote>crunch</quote>.
</para>
+<para>
+ Since version 3.0.7, Privoxy will also log the crunch reason.
+ If you are using an older version you might want to upgrade.
+</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads">
-<title>Can <application>Privoxy</application> effect files that I download
+<title>Can Privoxy effect files that I download
from a webserver? FTP server?</title>
<para>
From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between
viewing a document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of
<application>Privoxy</application>. If there is a match for a <literal><ulink
url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> pattern,
- it will still be blocked, and of course this is obvious. Filtering is
- potentially more of a concern since the results are not always so obvious.
+ it will still be blocked, and of course this is obvious.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always
+ so obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
+ viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
+ advertisement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course,
+ one of these presumably is <quote>bad</quote> content that we don't want, and
+ the other is <quote>good</quote> content that we do want.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is blind to the differences, and can only
+ distinguish <quote>good from bad</quote> by the configuration parameters
+ <emphasis>we</emphasis> give it.
</para>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application> knows the differences in files according
- to the <quote>Document Type</quote> as reported by the webserver. If this is
+ to the <quote>Content Type</quote> as reported by the webserver. If this is
reported accurately (e.g. <quote>application/zip</quote> for a zip archive),
then <application>Privoxy</application> knows to ignore these where
- appropriate. It is possible, however, that documents that are of an unknown
- type (generally assumed to be <quote>text/plain</quote>) will be filtered, as
- will those that might be incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a
- file is a downloaded file that is intended to be saved to disk, then any
- content that might have been altered by filtering, will be saved too, for
- these (probably very rare) cases.
+ appropriate. <application>Privoxy</application> potentially can filter HTML
+ as well as plain text documents, subject to configuration parameters of
+ course. Also, documents that are of an unknown type (generally assumed to be
+ <quote>text/plain</quote>) can be filtered, as will those that might be
+ incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a file is a downloaded file
+ that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have been
+ altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types reported as
+ <quote>text/plain</quote>. Prior to this, <application>Privoxy</application>
+ did filter this document type.
</para>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> does not do FTP at all, only HTTP
- protocols.
+ In short, filtering is <quote>ON</quote> if a) the content type as reported
+ by the webserver is appropriate <emphasis>and</emphasis> b) the configuration
+ allows it (or at least does not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic
+ cookie anywhere to say this is <quote>good</quote> and this is
+ <quote>bad</quote>. It's the configuration that lets it all happen or not.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
+ particularly if the content is source code, or other critical content. Source
+ code sometimes might be mistaken for Javascript (i.e. the kind that might
+ open a pop-up window). It is recommended to turn off filtering for download
+ sites (particularly if the content may be plain text files and you are using
+ version 3.0.2 or earlier) in your <filename>user.action</filename> file. And
+ also, for any site or page where making <emphasis>any</emphasis> changes at
+ all to the content is to be avoided.
+</para>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> does not do FTP at all, only HTTP
+ and HTTPS (SSL) protocols.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads2">
+<title>I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy
+altered it! Yikes, what is wrong!</title>
+<para>
+ Please read above.
</para>
</sect2>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="hostsfile">
+<title>Should I continue to use a <quote>HOSTS</quote> file for ad-blocking?</title>
+<para>
+ One time-tested technique to defeat common ads is to trick the local DNS
+ system by giving a phony IP address for the ad generator in the local
+ <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, typically using <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>, aka
+ <literal>localhost</literal>. This effectively blocks the ad.
+</para>
+<para>
+ There is no reason to use this technique in conjunction with
+ <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application>
+ does essentially the same thing, much more elegantly and with much more
+ flexibility. A large <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, in fact, not only
+ duplicates effort, but may get in the way and seriously slow down your system.
+ It is recommended to remove such entries from your <filename>HOSTS</filename> file. If you think
+ your hosts list is neglected by <application>Privoxy's </application>
+ configuration, consider adding your list to your <filename>user.action</filename> file:
+</para>
+<para>
+ <screen>
+ { +block }
+ www.ad.example1.com
+ ad.example2.com
+ ads.galore.example.com
+ etc.example.com</screen>
+</para>
+</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="seealso">
-<title>Where can I find more information about <application>Privoxy</application>
+<title>Where can I find more information about Privoxy
and related issues?</title>
<!-- Include seealso.sgml boilerplate: -->
&seealso;
<!--
<para>
- Please see the
- <ulink url="../user-manual/seealso.html">user-manual</ulink> for
+ Please see the
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/seealso.html">user-manual</ulink> for
others references.
</para>
-->
</sect2>
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="microsuck">
-<title>I've noticed that Privoxy changes <quote>Microsoft</quote> to
+<title>I've noticed that Privoxy changes <quote>Microsoft</quote> to
<quote>MicroSuck</quote>! Why are you manipulating my browsing?</title>
<para>
in the default configuration as shipped. You have either manually
activated the <quote><literal>fun</literal></quote> filter which
is clearly labeled <quote>Text replacements for subversive browsing
- fun!</quote> or you have implicitly activated it by choosing the
- <quote>Advanced</quote> profile in the web-based editor.
+ fun!</quote> or you are using an older Privoxy version and have implicitly
+ activated it by choosing the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile in the
+ web-based editor. Please upgrade.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="valid">
+<title>Does Privoxy produce <quote>valid</quote> HTML (or XHTML)?</title>
+
+<para>
+ Privoxy generates HTML in both its own <quote>templates</quote>, and possibly
+ whenever there are text substitutions via a &my-app; filter. While this
+ should always conform to the HTML 4.01 specifications, it has not been
+ validated against this or any other standard.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="surprise-privoxy">
+<title>How did you manage to get Privoxy on my computer without my consent?</title>
+
+<para>
+ We didn't. We make Privoxy available for download, but we don't go
+ around installing it on other people's systems behind their back.
+ If you discover Privoxy running on your system and are sure you didn't
+ install it yourself, somebody else did. You may not even be running
+ the real Privoxy, but maybe something else that only pretends to be
+ Privoxy, or maybe something that is based on the real Privoxy,
+ but has been modified.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Lately there have been reports of problems with some kind of
+ Privoxy versions that come preinstalled on some Netbooks.
+ Some of the problems described are inconsistent with the behaviour
+ of official Privoxy versions, which suggests that the preinstalled
+ software may contain vendor modifications that we don't know about
+ and thus can't debug.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Privoxy's <link linkend="copyright">license</link> allows vendor
+ modifications, but the vendor has to comply with the license,
+ which involves informing the user about the changes and to make
+ the changes available under the same license as Privoxy itself.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you are having trouble with a modified Privoxy version,
+ please try to talk to whoever made the modifications before
+ reporting the problem to us. Please also try to convince
+ whoever made the modifications to talk to us. If you think
+ somebody gave you a modified Privoxy version without complying
+ to the license, please let us know.
</para>
</sect2>
+
</sect1>
<title>Troubleshooting</title>
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="refused">I just upgraded and am getting <quote>connection refused</quote>
-with every web page?</title>
+<title id="refused">I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting
+<quote>connection refused</quote> message with every web page. Why?</title>
<para>
- Either <application>Privoxy</application> is not running, or your
- browser is configured for a different port than what
- <application>Privoxy</application> is using.
+ There are several possibilities:
</para>
-
<para>
- The old <application>Privoxy</application> (and also
- <application>Junkbuster</application>) used port 8000 by
- default. This has been changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict
- with NAS (Network Audio Service), which uses port 8000. If you haven't,
- you need to change your browser to the new port number, or alternately
- change the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS"><literal>listen-address</literal>
- option</ulink> in <application>Privoxy's</application> <ulink
- url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
+<itemizedlist>
+<listitem><para>
+<application>Privoxy</application> is not running. Solution: verify
+ that &my-app; is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running.
+ Turn on <application>Privoxy's</application> logging, and look at the logs to see what they say.
+</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is using. Solution: verify that &my-app;
+ and your browser are set to the same port (<literal>listen-address</literal>).
+</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem or a
+ problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: temporarily alter your
+ configuration and take the forwarders out of the equation.
+</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>
+ Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution:
+ try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple test.
+ </para></listitem>
+</itemizedlist>
</para>
</sect2>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="error503">
+<title>Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</title>
+ <para>
+ More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has
+ been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running! The solution is
+ to either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
+ something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products
+ may cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
+
<sect2 renderas="sect3">
-<title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
+<title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
still getting through. How?</title>
<para>
If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be
held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without
the need for any request to the server, and <application>Privoxy</application>
- will not be in the picture. The best thing to do is try flushing the browser's
- caches. And then try again.
+ will not be involved. Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.
</para>
<para>
If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
- and see if it really matches your new rule.
+ and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking
+ spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And
+ remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be
+ entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different
+ servers than the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should
+ be able to get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can
+ find the correct URL by looking at <application>Privoxy's</application> logs
+ (you may need to enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).
+</para>
+<para>
+ Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one
+ requested URL: <literal>www.example.com</literal> (name of site was changed
+ for this example, the number of requests is real). You can see in this the
+ complexity of what goes into making up this one <quote>page</quote>. There
+ are eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate URLs
+ requested in all, making up all manner of images, Shockwave Flash,
+ JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related content. Some of this
+ content is obviously <quote>good</quote> or <quote>bad</quote>, but not all.
+ Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to outside domains
+ that seem to be identifying themselves with suspicious looking names, making
+ our job a little easier. &my-app; has <quote>crunched</quote> (meaning caught
+ and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
+</para>
+<para>
+<screen>
+<![CDATA[
+Request: www.example.com/
+Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
+Request: img.example.com/main.css
+Request: img.example.com/sr.js
+Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
+Request: img.example.com/pb.png
+Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: img.example.com/p.gif
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
+Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
+Request: img.example.com/mt.png
+Request: img.example.com/mm.png
+Request: img.example.com/mb.png
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
+Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
+Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
+]]>
+</screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to
+ behave perfectly <quote>normal</quote> (minus some ads, of course).
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="badsite" renderas="sect3">
-<title >One of my favorite sites does not work with <application>Privoxy</application>.
+<title >One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy.
What can I do?</title>
<para>
- First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
+ First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
by toggling off <application>Privoxy</application> through <ulink
- url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>,
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
+ (the toggle feature may need to be enabled in the main
+ <filename>config</filename>),
and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and memory
caches).
</para>
<para>
- If still a problem, go to <ulink
+ If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem.
+ Now go to <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
- and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions
- are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are
- responsible for that. Now, armed with this information, go to <ulink
+ and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which
+ actions are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions
+ files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs
+ for this site too, to see what else might be happening (note: logging may need
+ to be enabled in the main config file). Many sites are
+ complex and require a number of related pages to help present their content.
+ Look at what else might be used by the page in question, and what of that
+ might be <emphasis>required</emphasis>.
+ Now, armed with this information, go to
+ <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
- and select the appropriate actions files for editing.
-</para>
+ and select the appropriate actions files for editing. </para>
<para>
You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that
you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there,
on again. Remember to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
</para>
<para>
- Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
- the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest
+ Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
+ the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest
way to deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your
site to a <literal>{ fragile }</literal> section in <filename>user.action</filename>,
which is an alias that turns off most <quote>dangerous</quote>
actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
- your privacy and protection more than necessary,
+ your privacy and protection more than necessary,
</para>
<para>
Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <ulink
- url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">user-manual appendix</ulink>.
+ url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">User Manual appendix,
+ Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</ulink>.
There is also an <ulink
- url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions tutorial</ulink>.
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions tutorial</ulink>
+ with general configuration information and examples.
+</para>
+<para>
+ As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting that will
+ bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers can do this.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect2 id="dun" renderas="sect3">
-<title>After installing <application>Privoxy</application>, I have to log in
+<title>After installing Privoxy, I have to log in
every time I start IE. What gives?</title>
<para>
set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for
each user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations
rather than common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after
- re-booting your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for
+ re-booting your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for
the password. Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
</para>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect2 id="ftp" renderas="sect3">
-<title>I cannot connect to any FTP sites. <application>Privoxy</application>
- seems to be blocking me.</title>
+<title>I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy
+ is blocking me.</title>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic,
+ <application>Privoxy</application> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic,
so do not configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
- as an FTP proxy. The same is true for any protocol other than HTTP or HTTPS.
+ as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <emphasis>any protocol other than HTTP
+ or HTTPS (SSL)</emphasis>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with
+ a URL like <literal>ftp://ftp.example.com</literal>, your browser is making
+ an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
+ speak FTP, <application>Privoxy</application> does not, and cannot proxy
+ such traffic.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <quote>proxy</quote>
+ setting, which will enable various protocols, including
+ <emphasis>both</emphasis> HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible to
+ accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this
+ happens, <application>Privoxy</application> will indeed cause problems since
+ it does not know FTP. <![%p-newstuff;[Newer version will give a sane error
+ message if a FTP connection is attempted.]]> Just disable the FTP setting
+ and all will be well again.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Will <application>Privoxy</application> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely.
+ There just is not much reason, and the work to make this happen is more than
+ it may seem.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2 id="osxie" renderas="sect3">
-<title>In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
- <application>Privoxy</application> as the HTTP proxy.</title>
+<sect2 id="macosxie" renderas="sect3">
+<title>In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
+ Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</title>
<para>
Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide
network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open System
Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane that
- comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox
- is checked and enter <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> in the entry field.
+ comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox
+ is checked and enter <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> in the entry field.
Enter <literal>8118</literal> in the Port field. The next time you start
IE, it should reflect these values.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="osxuninstall">
-<title>In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
- uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="macosxuninstall">
+<title>In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
+ uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
empty the trash.</title>
+ <para>
+ Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.
+ </para>
<para>
Just dragging the <application>Privoxy</application> folder to the trash is
- not enough to delete it.
<application>Privoxy</application> supplies an
+ not enough to delete it. <application>Privoxy</application> supplies an
<application>uninstall.command</application> file that takes care of
- these details.
Open the trash, drag the <application>uninstall.command</application>
- file out of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for
+ these details. Open the trash, drag the <application>uninstall.command</application>
+ file out of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for
confirmation and the administration password.
- </para>
+ </para>
<para>
- The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash
+ The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash
from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="macosximages">
+<title>In Mac OS X Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
+ experience random delays in page loading. I'm using
+ <literal>localhost</literal> as my browser's proxy setting.</title>
+ <para>
+ We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but don't fully
+ understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to
+ <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> instead of <literal>localhost</literal>
+ works around the problem.
+ </para>
+</sect2>
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<!-- XXX: Is this still relevant now that we have gzip support? -->
<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blankpage">
<title>I get a completely blank page at one site. <quote>View Source</quote>
shows only: <markup><![CDATA[<html><body></body></html>]]></markup>. Without
- <application>Privoxy</application> the page loads fine.</title>
+ Privoxy the page loads fine.</title>
<para>
Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in
<ulink url="http://www.php.net/"><application>PHP</application></ulink>,
<filename>user.action</filename>:
</para>
<screen>
- # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
- #
- {-prevent-compression}
+ # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
+ #
+ {-prevent-compression}
.example.com</screen>
<para>
If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
</para>
</sect2>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nohostname">
+<title>My logs show many <quote>Unable to get my own hostname</quote> lines.
+Why?</title>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> tries to get the hostname of the system
+ its running on from the IP address of the system interface it is bound to
+ (from the <filename>config</filename> file
+ <emphasis>listen-address</emphasis> setting). If the system cannot supply
+ this information, <application>Privoxy</application> logs this condition.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is
+ not a fatal error to <application>Privoxy</application> however, but may
+ result in a much slower response from <application>Privoxy</application> on
+ some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
+</para>
+<para>
+ This can be caused by a problem with the local <filename>hosts</filename>
+ file. If this file has been changed from the original, try reverting it to
+ see if that helps. Make sure whatever name(s) are used for the local system,
+ that they resolve both ways.
+</para>
+<para>
+ You should also be able to work around the problem with the
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME">hostname option</ulink>.
+</para>
+</sect2>
-</sect1>
-<!--
-</sect1>
--->
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="inuse">
+<title>When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an
+error message <quote>port 8118 is already in use</quote> (or similar wording).
+Why?</title>
+<para>
+ Port 8118 is <application>Privoxy's</application> default TCP
+ <quote>listening</quote> port. Typically this message would mean that there
+ is already one instance of <application>Privoxy</application> running, and
+ your system is actually trying to start a second
+ <application>Privoxy</application> on the same port, which will not work.
+ (You can have multiple instances but they must be assigned different ports.)
+ How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need
+ to check your installation and start-up procedures.
+</para>
+</sect2>
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<!--
-FIXME: Commented out until we have something to put here. HB 03/18/02.
-<sect1 id="knownissues"><title>Known Issues</title>
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer">
+<title>
+ Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
+</title>
+<para>
+ This is caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter. You should either
+ upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or at least upgrade to the most
+ recent <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
+ url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
+ Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer2">
+<title>
+ Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy
+ is used?
+</title>
+<para>
+ This may also be caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter,
+ in conjunction with a web server that is misreporting the content type. Binary
+ files are exempted from <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering
+ (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else). Either
+ upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or go to the most recent
+ <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
+ url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer3">
+<title>
+ What is the <quote>demoronizer</quote> and why is it there?
+</title>
+<para>
+ The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which
+ were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary extensions
+ to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has caused problems for pages
+ that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a
+ standard set of fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
+ displayed correctly. <application>Privoxy</application> borrowed from this
+ script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn could
+ correct these errors on the fly.
+</para>
+<para>
+ But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some
+ other situations.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view
+ pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will
+ cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <emphasis>should not be on</emphasis>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
+ notice weird characters on pages, you might want to try it.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="windowopen">
+<title>
+ Why do I keep seeing <quote>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</quote> in raw source code?
+</title>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is attempting to disable malicious
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink>
+ in this case, with the <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal>
+ filter. <application>Privoxy</application> cannot tell very well
+ <quote>good</quote> code snippets from <quote>bad</quote> code snippets.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then
+ this is good, and likely some pop-up window was disabled. If you see this
+ where it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source code file,
+ then you should set an exception for this site or page such that the
+ integrity of the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="dnserrors">
+<title>
+ I am getting too many DNS errors like <quote>404 No Such Domain</quote>. Why
+ can't Privoxy do this better?
+</title>
+<para>
+ There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution
+ is done by the underlying operating system -- not
+ <application>Privoxy</application> itself. <application>Privoxy</application>
+ merely initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports
+ whatever the outcome was and tries to give a coherent message if there seems
+ to be a problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the
+ browser itself which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g
+ adding <quote>www.</quote> to the URL).
+</para>
+<para>
+ In other cases, if <application>Privoxy</application> is being chained
+ with another proxy, this could complicate the issue, and cause undue
+ delays and timeouts. In the case of a <quote>socks4a</quote> proxy, the socks
+ server handles all the DNS. <application>Privoxy</application> would just be
+ the <quote>messenger</quote> which is reporting whatever problem occurred
+ downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
+</para>
+<![%p-newstuff;[
+<para>
+ In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements to help
+ <application>Privoxy</application> better handle these cases.
+</para>]]>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allcpu">
+<title>
+ At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking
+ all CPU. Why is this?
+</title>
+<para>
+ This is probably a manifestation of the <quote>100% cpu</quote> problem that
+ occurs on pages containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines
+ are in the raw HTML source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
+ pattern matching in <application>Privoxy's</application> page filtering
+ mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this becomes
+ very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long time to complete.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these pages,
+ particularly the <literal>js-annoyances</literal> and
+ <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal> filters. If you run into this problem
+ with a recent &my-app; version, please send a problem report.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="slowcrawl">
+<title>I just installed Privoxy, and all my
+browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives? </title>
+<para>
+ This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide,
+ it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent interaction of software
+ components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors, personal
+ firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one
+ at a time and see if that helps. Either way, if you are using a
+ recent &my-app; version, please report the problem.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="preventcomp">
+<title>Why do my filters work on some sites but not on others? </title>
+<para>
+ It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to
+ send their content <quote>compressed</quote> in order to speed things up, and
+ then let the browser <quote>uncompress</quote> them. When compiled with zlib support
+ &my-app; can decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to enable
+<ulink
+ url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ As of &my-app; 3.0.9, zlib support is enabled in the default builds.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ssl-warnings">
+<title>On some HTTPS sites my browser warns me about unauthenticated content,
+ the URL bar doesn't get highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be broken.
+ What's going on?</title>
+<para>
+ Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and &my-app;
+ is blocking the requests. Privoxy's error messages are delivered
+ unencrypted and while it's obvious for the browser that the HTTPS
+ request is already blocked by the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated
+ content anyway.
+</para>
<para>
- Fill me.
+ To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an invalid
+ local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects aren't
+ encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply follow the
+ redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error message instead
+ of the ad.
</para>
+<para>
+ To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked by
+ &my-app; and add the hosts (no path patterns) to a section like this:
+</para>
+<para>
+<screen>
+<![CDATA[
+{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
+.ivwbox.de:443/
+]]>
+</screen>
+</para>
+<para>
+ Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact
+ <quote>127.0.0.1:0</quote> directly (instead of through &my-app;).
+</para>
+<para>
+ To add a proxy exception in <application>Mozilla Firefox</application>
+ open the <quote>Preferences</quote>, click the <quote>Settings</quote>
+ button located on the <quote>Network</quote> tab in the <quote>Advanced</quote>
+ section, and add <quote>127.0.0.1:0</quote> in the <quote>No Proxy for:</quote>
+ field.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="se-linux">
+<title>I get selinux error messages. How can I fix this?</title>
+<para>
+ Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.
+</para>
+<para>
+ The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar
+ with the application they are trying to <quote>secure</quote> and
+ thus create policies that make no sense.
+</para>
+<para>
+ In <application>Privoxy's</application> case the problem usually
+ is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for certain
+ destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover the
+ standard ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well.
+ This isn't a security problem and therefore <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ default configuration doesn't block these requests.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able
+ to load websites that don't use standard ports), you should
+ configure Privoxy to block these ports as well, so it doesn't
+ trigger the selinux warnings.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+
+<sect2 renderas="sect3" id="gentoo-ricers">
+<title>I compiled &my-app; with Gentoo's portage and it appears to be very slow. Why?</title>
+<para>
+ Probably you unintentionally compiled &my-app; without threading support
+ in which case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served
+ at the same time.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Check your <quote>USE</quote> flags and make sure they include
+ <quote>threads</quote>. If they don't, add the flag and rebuild &my-app;.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you compiled &my-app; with threading support (on POSIX-based systems),
+ the <quote>Conditional #defines</quote> section on <ulink
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
+ will list <quote>FEATURE_PTHREAD</quote> as <quote>enabled</quote>.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
+
</sect1>
--->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</title>
&contacting;
<!-- end contacting -->
</sect1>
-
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
<!-- Include copyright.sgml -->
©right;
<!-- end -->
-
+
+
<para>
Portions of this document are <quote>borrowed</quote> from the original
- <application>Junkbuster</application> (tm) FAQ, and modified as
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> (tm) FAQ, and modified as
appropriate for <application>Privoxy</application>.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
-
-
+
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<!--
<sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
<!-- hhmts end -->
<!--
Tue 09/11/01 06:38:14 PM EST: Test SGML doc by Hal Burgiss.
-
- Last modified: Mon Sep 10 19:22:09 CEST 2001
-
- This program is free software; you can redistribute it
+
+ This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
The GNU General Public License should be included with
this file. If not, you can view it at
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
- or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
- Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
+ or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
+ 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
$Log: faq.sgml,v $
-Revision 2.2 2002/09/05 04:25:05 hal9
-Sync with 3.0 branch. No new content.
+Revision 2.84 2011/11/13 17:03:54 fabiankeil
+Bump entities for 3.0.18 stable
+
+Revision 2.83 2011/11/13 16:53:24 fabiankeil
+Rephrase the donations section some more
+
+Mention that the domain is now sponsored by Mythic Beasts Ltd
+and make it clear that asking questions about donations is
+possible, too.
+
+Revision 2.82 2011/11/13 16:50:34 fabiankeil
+Note that donations for Privoxy are currently only tax-deductible in the US
+
+As it turns out tax-deductible donations in a few other western
+countries are theoretically possible through partner organizations
+but aren't available out of the box.
+
+Revision 2.81 2011/09/04 11:10:12 fabiankeil
+Ditch trailing whitespace
+
+Revision 2.80 2011/08/18 11:42:50 fabiankeil
+Bump some more documentation copyright ranges.
+
+Revision 2.79 2011/08/17 10:40:07 fabiankeil
+Update the entities.
+
+This commit is chronological out of order.
+
+Revision 2.78 2011/04/19 13:14:10 fabiankeil
+Fix spelling errors in the documentation. Found with codespell.
+
+Revision 2.77 2011/03/03 14:22:12 fabiankeil
+Remove duplicated 'the'
+
+Revision 2.76 2010/11/22 10:35:02 fabiankeil
+Mention socks5 in another part of the Tor section.
+
+Revision 2.75 2010/11/13 10:08:00 fabiankeil
+Fix a link to the 'intercepting' entry and add another one
+
+Revision 2.74 2010/11/13 10:07:46 fabiankeil
+Remove the product names in the 'otherproxy' entry's title.
+
+I'm tired of getting the 'otherproxy' entry as first hit
+when searching the index for the Tor FAQ.
+
+Revision 2.73 2010/11/06 12:55:48 fabiankeil
+Set p-version to 3.0.17
+
+Revision 2.72 2010/02/27 12:13:17 fabiankeil
+Fix spelling.
+
+Revision 2.71 2010/02/27 12:12:13 fabiankeil
+Consistently recommending socks5 in the Tor entry and mention its advantage compared to socks4a.
+Reported by David in #2960129.
+
+Revision 2.70 2010/02/20 18:08:31 ler762
+fix typo
+
+Revision 2.69 2010/02/13 17:38:27 fabiankeil
+Update entities for 3.0.16 stable.
+
+Revision 2.68 2010/01/30 19:51:28 fabiankeil
+New FAQ entry: How did you manage to get Privoxy on my computer without my consent?
+
+Also bump copyright.
+
+Revision 2.67 2009/11/15 14:24:12 fabiankeil
+Prepare to generate docs for 3.0.16 UNRELEASED.
+
+Revision 2.66 2009/10/10 05:48:55 fabiankeil
+Prepare for 3.0.15 beta.
+
+Revision 2.65 2009/07/18 16:24:39 fabiankeil
+Bump entities for 3.0.14 beta.
+
+Revision 2.64 2009/07/18 12:18:52 fabiankeil
+Don't describe the action files in the FAQ when we can simply link to the description in the User Manual.
+
+Revision 2.63 2009/06/15 15:08:03 fabiankeil
+Patch #2806626 from Frédéric Crozat to fix a closing tag.
+
+Revision 2.62 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
+Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
+
+Revision 2.61 2009/06/12 11:52:33 fabiankeil
+Mention the TODO list in the participate entry.
+
+Revision 2.60 2009/04/07 12:25:05 fabiankeil
+In the "I would like to help ..." entry:
+- Change the ids to more general ones as helping out doesn't require
+ joining the team (and joining the team requires significantly helping
+ out first, anyway).
+- Add links to the subscription pages for the main mailing lists.
+
+Revision 2.59 2009/03/28 15:33:41 fabiankeil
+Recommend the use of forward-socks5 when forwarding to Tor.
+The error messages are more detailed than with forward-socks4a.
+
+Revision 2.58 2009/03/21 12:27:44 fabiankeil
+Turn the donation entry title into a question,
+also rephrase the content a bit.
+
+Revision 2.57 2009/03/19 19:07:49 fabiankeil
+First draft of a "Donating" entry. To be polished tomorrow.
+
+Revision 2.56 2009/02/19 17:05:05 fabiankeil
+Explain slowness when build with Gentoo's portage.
+
+Revision 2.55 2009/02/19 02:20:21 hal9
+Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
+
+Revision 2.54 2009/02/15 20:47:12 hal9
+Fix small typo.
+
+Revision 2.53 2009/02/15 20:46:13 hal9
+Update Outlook HTML rendering engine comments re: Office 2007.
+
+Revision 2.52 2009/02/14 10:27:52 fabiankeil
+Finish last paragraph in the selinux entry which
+I unintentionally committed with the last commit.
+
+Revision 2.51 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
+Declare the code stable.
+
+Revision 2.50 2009/02/11 18:13:36 fabiankeil
+State the obvious.
+
+Revision 2.49 2009/02/10 16:30:20 fabiankeil
+Add a workaround for "unauthenticated content" warnings on HTTPS sites.
+
+Revision 2.48 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
+The standard.action file is gone.
+
+Revision 2.47 2008/11/24 18:29:39 fabiankeil
+Two changes suggested by Roger Dingledine:
+- Use https://www.torproject.org/ in section 4.7, too.
+- Replace the Tor wiki URL in section 4.10 with one
+ with a more useful anchor name.
+
+Revision 2.46 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
+Update entities.
+
+Revision 2.45 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
+Update version-related entities.
+
+Revision 2.44 2008/06/19 01:41:36 hal9
+Add short note about zlib being enabled in 3.0.9
+
+Revision 2.43 2008/06/14 13:21:25 fabiankeil
+Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
+
+Revision 2.42 2008/06/07 13:11:15 fabiankeil
+- Note that the "100% cpu problem" is worth
+ reporting if it happens with a recent release.
+- Mention the hostname option as a workaround for
+ the "can't get my own hostname" issue.
+- The profile formerly known as "Adventuresome"
+ is called "Advanced" now.
+- Some white-space fixes.
+
+Revision 2.41 2008/06/06 15:32:09 fabiankeil
+- Minor rewordings.
+- Don't claim that all the old Junkbuster features remain.
+ Some of them have been removed or replaced with better ones.
+
+Revision 2.40 2008/02/22 05:54:27 markm68k
+updates for mac os x
+
+Revision 2.39 2008/02/03 21:37:41 hal9
+Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
+
+Revision 2.38 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
+Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
+
+Revision 2.37 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
+Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
+
+Revision 2.36 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
+Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
+enough.
+
+Revision 2.35 2007/11/19 17:57:59 fabiankeil
+A bunch of rewordings, minor updates and fixes.
+
+Revision 2.34 2007/11/19 02:38:11 hal9
+Minor revisions and rebuild
+
+Revision 2.33 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
+Results of spell check.
+
+Revision 2.32 2007/11/13 03:03:42 hal9
+Various changes to reflect new features and revised configuration for the
+upcoming release.
+
+Revision 2.31 2007/11/05 02:34:53 hal9
+Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
+
+Revision 2.30 2007/11/04 15:16:40 hal9
+Fix one silly typo.
+
+Revision 2.29 2007/11/04 15:12:47 hal9
+Various minor adjustments.
+
+Revision 2.28 2007/10/27 15:14:16 fabiankeil
+Change Tor links to use the new domain torproject.org.
+
+Revision 2.27 2007/10/22 19:47:05 fabiankeil
+- Bump version and copyright.
+- Adjust Tor section to make it clear that forward exceptions
+ aren't required and may not even be desired.
+- A bunch of other minor rewordings.
+- Fix markup problems Roland noticed (hopefully without adding new ones).
+
+Revision 2.26 2007/08/05 15:37:55 fabiankeil
+- Don't claim that thousands of people read our code.
+- Specify the GPL version and link to GPLv2 instead of v3.
+- Note that configuration syntax may change between releases.
+- Mention zlib support.
+- Answer the "transparent proxy" question properly.
+- Add "intercepting proxy" entry.
+- Mention Polipo.
+- Rephrase some other sentences for various reasons.
+
+Revision 2.25 2007/07/18 11:00:34 hal9
+Add misc note about valid mark-up in Privoxy.
+
+Revision 2.24 2006/11/14 01:57:46 hal9
+Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
+manual.
+
+Revision 2.23 2006/10/21 22:19:52 hal9
+Two new FAQs, a rewrite or two, and some touch ups.
+
+Revision 2.22 2006/10/14 20:33:10 hal9
+Three new FAQ's re: templates and blocking, and various minor touch-ups/improvements.
+
+Revision 2.21 2006/10/03 14:40:51 fabiankeil
+Added links from the Tor faq to the
+configuration chapter in the User Manual.
+
+Revision 2.20 2006/09/26 10:12:37 fabiankeil
+Spelling fix.
+
+Revision 2.19 2006/09/22 10:54:32 hal9
+Change references to 3.0.4 to 3.0.5 and minor adjustments.
+
+Revision 2.18 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
+Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
+something changes this should be ready for pending release.
+
+Revision 2.17 2006/09/17 14:56:32 hal9
+This includes yet several more new FAQs, some improved wording, enhanced
+mark-up, various hyper links to wikipedia to explain key terminology to the
+uninitiated, etc. This is ready for release IMO pending final tagging of cvs
+and Privoxy version stamping.
+
+Revision 2.16 2006/09/10 15:30:46 hal9
+Spell check.
+
+Revision 2.15 2006/09/08 23:05:07 hal9
+Fix broken links. Add faq on hosts files. Move most of new windows service
+feature to user manual and reference in faq. Various other small changes.
+
+Revision 2.14 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
+Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
+
+Revision 2.13 2006/09/04 19:20:33 fabiankeil
+Adjusted anonymity related sections to match reality.
+Added a section about using Privoxy with Tor.
+
+Revision 2.12 2006/09/03 14:15:30 hal9
+Various updates, including 7 or 8 new FAQs, and updates/changes to various
+other ones to better reflect improvements, additions and changes for the
+upcoming release. This is close to final form for 3.0.4 IMHO.
+
+Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:50 david__schmidt
+Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
+with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
+
+Revision 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes
+Fixed allow-all-cookies alias name; closes SR #929746
+
+Revision 1.61.2.40 2004/01/30 17:00:33 oes
+Added Mac OS X Panther problem
+
+Revision 1.61.2.39 2004/01/29 22:53:08 hal9
+Minor changes for exempting docs of text/plain. Change copyright date.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.38 2003/12/10 03:39:45 hal9
+Added FAQs for: demoronizer, related problems and why its included. Also,
+port 8118 already in use questions, and PrivoxyWindowOpen() questions. All in
+troubleshooting section.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.37 2003/10/17 11:01:50 oes
+Added Q&A for "not being used" page problem
+
+Revision 1.61.2.36 2003/06/26 23:49:20 hal9
+More on the filter/source code problem.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.35 2003/06/26 13:38:08 hal9
+Add FAQ on whether configuring Privoxy is necessary or not.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.34 2003/06/26 03:00:03 hal9
+Sorry, found another copyright date.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.33 2003/06/26 02:57:05 hal9
+Fix typo (finally!) and very minor modifications.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.32 2003/06/26 02:52:04 hal9
+Test, no changes.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.31 2003/06/25 01:27:51 hal9
+Fix copyright, and a few nits.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.30 2003/06/25 01:13:52 hal9
+Add:
+
+ - FAQ on "Unable to get my own hostname"
+ - Another one on filtering effects on text files.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.29 2003/06/15 21:32:58 hal9
+Add to the 4.17 (filtering effects on downloaded files).
+
+Revision 1.61.2.28 2003/03/18 19:37:21 oes
+s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
+
+Revision 1.61.2.27 2002/12/01 06:31:58 hal9
+Add faq on win32 error 503 due to ZoneAlarm.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.26 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
+Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
+Add faq on cookies.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.25 2002/10/29 03:21:50 hal9
+Add 3 Q/A's relating to HTML in email. Other minor touchups.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.24 2002/10/15 12:50:22 oes
+s/Advanced/Radical/ (stupid me)
+
+Revision 1.61.2.23 2002/10/15 12:38:56 oes
+Added Microsuck faq; more detail for PHP problem
+
+Revision 1.61.2.22 2002/10/12 01:13:13 hal9
+Updates for demoronizer, more commentary on Radical profile, and update on
+the srvany.exe/icon fix.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
+s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
+
+Revision 1.61.2.20 2002/09/26 01:22:45 hal9
+Small additions for LAN setup, content-cookies/SSL, and FTP non-support.
Revision 1.61.2.19 2002/08/25 23:31:56 hal9
Fix one grammatical error. Add brief FAQ relating to tranparent proxies (ie
Add disclaimer about probably being out-of-date
Revision 1.61.2.14 2002/08/07 02:53:43 hal9
-Fix some minor markup errors, and move one OSX Q/A to troubleshooting section.
+Fix some minor markup errors, and move one Mac OS X Q/A to troubleshooting section.
Revision 1.61.2.13 2002/08/06 11:55:32 oes
Added missing close tag
Revision 1.61.2.12 2002/08/06 11:43:46 david__schmidt
-Updated OSX uninstall FAQ... we have an uninstall script now.
+Updated Mac OS X uninstall FAQ... we have an uninstall script now.
Revision 1.61.2.11 2002/08/06 08:54:03 oes
Style police: Fixed formatting details
Revision 1.61.2.10 2002/08/02 14:00:25 david__schmidt
-Made the OSX removal commands far less dangerous
+Made the Mac OS X removal commands far less dangerous
Revision 1.61.2.9 2002/08/02 13:14:45 oes
-Added warning about sudo rm -r for Mac OSX deinstallation; moved this item to install section
+Added warning about sudo rm -r for Mac OS X deinstallation; moved this item to install section
Revision 1.61.2.8 2002/08/02 02:01:42 david__schmidt
-Add FAQ item for MSIE on OSX HTTP proxy confusion
+Add FAQ item for MSIE on Mac OS X HTTP proxy confusion
Revision 1.61.2.7 2002/08/02 01:46:01 david__schmidt
-Added FAQ item for Mac OSX uninstall woes
+Added FAQ item for Mac OS X uninstall woes
Revision 1.61.2.6 2002/07/30 20:04:56 hal9
Fix typo: 'schould'.
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff