This file belongs into
ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
- $Id: faq.sgml,v 1.26 2002/03/25 02:54:39 hal9 Exp $
+ $Id: faq.sgml,v 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa Exp $
Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
- PRIVOXY team. http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net
+ Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
<artheader>
<title>Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions</title>
-<pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.26 2002/03/25 02:54:39 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
+<pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa Exp $</pubdate>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<abstract>
<para>
-The FAQ document gives users and developers alike answers to frequently asked
-questions about
-<application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application> is a web
-proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering
-web page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads,
-banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet
-Junk. <application>Privoxy</application> has a very flexible configuration and
-can be customized to suit individual needs and
-tastes. <application>Privoxy</application> has application for both stand-alone
-systems and multi-user networks.
+ This FAQ gives users and developers alike answers to frequently asked
+ questions about <application>Privoxy</application>.
</para>
<para>
-You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/faq/">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/faq/</ulink>.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is a web proxy with advanced filtering
+ capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering web page content, managing
+ cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other
+ obnoxious Internet junk. <application>Privoxy</application> has a very
+ flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and
+ tastes. <application>Privoxy</application> has application for both
+ stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.
+</para>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is based on the code of the
+ <application>Internet Junkbuster</application>.
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> was originally written by JunkBusters
+ Corporation, and was released as free open-source software under the GNU GPL.
+ Stefan Waldherr made many improvements, and started the SourceForge project
+ to continue development.
+</para>
+
+
+ <para>
+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 Contact section in the
-<ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/contact.html">user-manual</ulink> if you want to contact the developers.
+<ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/contact.html">user-manual</ulink> if you want to contact the developers.
</para>
<!-- <para> -->
</para>
<para>
The new <application>Privoxy</application> started with the same
- code base, but has changed significantly at this point.
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> code base, but has changed
+ significantly at this point.
</para>
</sect3>
+
+<sect3>
+<title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why a name change at all?</title>
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is for <quote>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</quote>.
+ There are possible legal complications from the continued use of the
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a trademark of
+ <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>.
+ (There are no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
+ <application>Privoxy</application> project itself though, and they
+ in fact still share our ideals and goals.)
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ The developers also believed that there 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, especially now with the pending release of
+ version 3.0.
+
+</para>
+</sect3>
+
+
<sect3 id="differs"><title>How does it differ from the old <application>Junkbuster?</application></title>
<para>
All the old features remain. The new <application>Privoxy</application>
<sect3 id="features"><title>What are some of the new features?</title>
<!--
- The section is in both user-manual and faq. Please keep in sync!!!
+ This section is in both user-manual and faq. Please keep in sync!!!
-->
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<sect2 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
-<sect3 id="newinstall"><title>Can I install the new
- <application>Privoxy</application> over the old one?</title>
+<sect3 id="whichbrowsers">
+<title>Which browsers are supported by <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
+<para>
+ Any browser that can be configured to use a <quote>proxy</quote>, which
+ is probably almost all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary
+ since <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and
+ just exchanges standard HTML data with your browser.
+</para>
+</sect3>
+
+<sect3 id="whichos">
+<title>Which operating systems are supported?</title>
+<para>
+ Right now Win32, Mac OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS, Linux, and many
+ flavors of Unix.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Source code is available, so porting to other operating systems,
+ is always a possibility.
+
+</para>
+</sect3>
+
+<sect3 id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
+ <application>Privoxy</application> over <application>Junkbuster</application>?</title>
<para>
- We recommend you uninstall
the old <application>Junkbuster</application>
+ We recommend you uninstall <application>Junkbuster</application>
first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
is substantially changed.
</para>
<para>
See the <ulink
- url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/">user-manual</ulink> for
+ url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">user-manual</ulink> for
platform specific installation instructions. [FIXME: This is meant for after
the name change for 3.0!]
</para>
some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
<para>
These are all explained in the
- <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">user-manual</ulink>.
+ <ulink url="../user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">user-manual</ulink>.
Please refer to that.
</para>
</sect3>
The easiest way to do this, is to access <application>Privoxy</application>
with your web browser at <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>,
and then select
- "<ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/edit-actions">Edit the actions list</ulink>"
+ "<ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/config/edit-actions">Edit the actions list</ulink>"
from the selection list. You can also do this by editing the appropriate
file with a text editor.
</para>
<para>
Please see the
<ulink
- url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">user-manual</ulink> for a
+ url="../user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">user-manual</ulink> for a
detailed explanation of these and other configuration files, and their
various options and syntax.
</para>
</para>
</sect3>
+
+<sect3>
+<title id="filterfile">What is a <quote>default.filter</quote>?</title>
+<para>
+ The <quote>default.filter</quote> file is used to <quote>filter</quote> any
+ web page content. By <quote>filtering</quote> we mean it can modify, remove,
+ or change <emphasis>anything</emphasis> on the page, including HTML tags, and
+ JavaScript. Regular expressions are used to accomplish this, and operate
+ on a line by line basis. This is potentially a very powerful feature, but
+ requires some expertise.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
+ the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and see
+ some of things it can be used for.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
+ but you can disable/enable various sections of the included default
+ file with the <quote>Actions List Editor</quote> from your browser.
+</para>
+
+</sect3>
+
<sect3>
<title id="lanconfig">How can I set up <application>Privoxy</application> to act as a proxy for my
LAN?</title>
This is a configuration option for images that
<application>Privoxy</application> is stopping. You have the choice <!-- of
the --> <!-- <application>Privoxy</application> logo, --> a checkerboard
- pattern (this scales better), a transparent 1x1 GIF image, or a custom URL or
- your choice.
+ pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF image (aka <quote>blank</quote>), or a custom
+ URL or your choice.
</para>
<para>
<sect3>
-<title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see the checkerboard?</title>
+<title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?</title>
<para>
This can be helpful for troubleshooting problems. It might also be good
for anyone new to <application>Privoxy</application> so that they can
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
as <quote>images</quote> (e.g. ad banners). If you want them to be treated
- as if they were images, so that they can be invisible, then move the
+ as if they were images, so that they can be made invisible, then move the
offending URL from the <quote>+block</quote> section to the
<quote>+imageblock</quote> section of your actions file. Alternately, you
could modify the <quote><filename>block</filename></quote> HTML template that
</sect3>
+<sect3 id="otherproxy">
+<title>How can I make <application>Privoxy</application> work with other
+proxies like <application>Squid</application>?</title>
+<para>
+ This can be done. See the <ulink
+ url="../user-manual/configuration.html#FORWARDING">user manual</ulink>,
+ which describes how to do this.
+
+</para>
+
+</sect3>
+
</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2 id="misc"><title>Misc</title>
+<sect2 id="misc"><title>Miscellaneous</title>
<sect3>
<title id="slowsme">How much does <application>Privoxy</application> slow my browsing down? This
user a feeling of "it works".
</para>
<para>
-To modify the content of a page (i.e. make frames resize-able again, etc.) and
+To modify the content of a page (i.e. make frames resizeable again, etc.) and
not just replace ads, <application>Privoxy</application> needs to download the
entire page first, do its content magic and then send the page to the browser.
</para>
<para>
With recent versions of <application>Privoxy</application> (version 2.9.x), you can get some
information about <application>Privoxy</application> and change some settings by going to
-http://p.p/ or, equivalently, http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/
+http://p.p/ or, equivalently, http://www.privoxy.org/config/
(Note that p.p is far easier to type but may not work in some
configurations).
</para>
<para>
If you are not running <application>Privoxy</application>, then http://p.p/ will fail, and
-http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/ will return a web page telling you
+http://www.privoxy.org/config/ will return a web page telling you
you're not running <application>Privoxy</application>.
</para>
<emphasis>blank</emphasis>, or a URL of your choosing.
</para>
<para>
-Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option entirely.
+Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option entirely
+[as of v2.9.13].
</para>
</sect3>
</sect3>
-<sect3>
-<title id="filterfile">What is a <quote>default.filter</quote>?</title>
+<sect3 id="turnoff">
+<title>How can I temporarily disable <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
<para>
- The <quote>default.filter</quote> is used to <quote>filter</quote> any
- page content. By <quote>filtering</quote> we mean it can modify, remove,
- or change <emphasis>anything</emphasis> on the page, including HTML tags, and
- JavaScript. Regular expressions are used to accomplish this. This is
- potentially a very powerful feature, but requires some expertise.
-</para>
+ The easiest way is to access <application>Privoxy</application> with your
+ browser by using the special URL: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>
+ and select "Toggle Privoxy on or off" from that page.
-<para>
- If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
- the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and see
- some of things it can be used for.
</para>
-
-<para>
- Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration.
-</para>
-
</sect3>
+
</sect2>
<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://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info</ulink>
+ url="http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info">http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info</ulink>
and see if any actions match your new rule.
</para>
that looks like it is disabling the feature that is causing the
problem. Re-try the page. There might be some trial and error involved. This
is discussed in a little more detail in the <ulink
- url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">user-manual
+ url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">user-manual
appendix</ulink>.
</para>
</para>
</sect1>
-->
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<!--
+
+This is referenced in the doc header already. HB 03/25/02
+
<sect1 id="contact"><title>Contact the developers</title>
<para>Please see the user manual for information on how to contact the developers.
</para>
</sect1>
-
+-->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
<para>Please see the user manual for information on Copyright and History.
Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
$Log: faq.sgml,v $
-Revision 1.26 2002/03/25 02:54:39 hal9
-Fix typo in link.
+Revision 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
+we have a new homepage!
+
+Revision 1.30 2002/03/25 16:39:22 hal9
+A few new sections. Made all links relative to user-manual.
+
+Revision 1.29 2002/03/25 05:23:57 hal9
+Moved section, and touch ups.
+
+Revision 1.28 2002/03/25 04:27:33 hal9
+New section related to name change.
Revision 1.25 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
we are too lazy to make a block-built
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff