<!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
<!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
<!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
-<!entity p-version "3.0.5">
-<!entity p-status "BETA">
+<!entity p-version "3.0.8">
+<!entity p-status "stable">
<!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
-<!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
-<!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
+<!entity % p-not-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-readme "IGNORE">
This file belongs into
ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
- $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt Exp $
+ $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil Exp $
- Copyright (C) 2001- 2006 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org
+ Copyright (C) 2001-2008 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
See LICENSE.
========================================================================
<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 - 2006 by
+ <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001 - 2008 by
<ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
</subscript>
</pubdate>
-<pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt Exp $</pubdate>
+<pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
<!--
How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
</para>
+<!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs</title>
+<sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
<para>
RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
+<sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
<para>
DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
</para>
<para>
- Version 3.0.
4 introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
+ Version 3.0.
5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
<application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
+<sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
<para>
Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
+<sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
<para>
Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
</para>
</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
+
+<para>
+ Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
+ it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
+ the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
+</para>
+<para>
+ The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
+ <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
+ Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
+ beta releases which are only available there.
+</para>
+</sect3>
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
<para>
<para>
The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
- is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
+ is to download the source tarball from our
+ <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
page</ulink>.
</para>
<sect1 id="whatsnew">
<title>What's New in this Release</title>
<para>
- There are many improvements and new features in <application>Privoxy</application> &p-version;
- :
+ There are many improvements and new features since <application>Privoxy 3.0.6</application>, the last stable release:
</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
- Multiple <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link> can now be specified in <filename>config</filename>. This allows for
- locally defined filters that can be maintained separately from the filters as
- supplied by the developers, i.e. <filename>default.filter</filename>.
+ Two new actions <link
+ linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link>
+ and <link
+ linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link>
+ that can be used to create arbitrary <quote>tags</quote>
+ based on client and server headers.
+ These <quote>tags</quote> can then subsequently be used
+ to control the other actions used for the current request,
+ greatly increasing &my-app;'s flexibility and selectivity. See <link
+ linkend="tag-pattern">tag patterns</link> for more information on tags.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Header filtering is done with dedicated header filters now. As a result
+ the actions <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and <quote>filter-server-headers</quote>
+ that were introduced with <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply
+ content filters to the headers have been removed.
+ See the new actions <link
+ linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link>
+ and <link
+ linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link> for details.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ There are four new options for the main <filename>config</filename> file:
+ </para>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <link
+ linkend="allow-cgi-request-crunching">allow-cgi-request-crunching</link>
+ which allows requests for Privoxy's internal CGI pages to be
+ blocked, redirected or (un)trusted like ordinary requests.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <link
+ linkend="split-large-forms">split-large-forms</link>
+ that will work around a browser bug that caused IE6 and IE7 to
+ ignore the Submit button on the Privoxy's edit-actions-for-url CGI
+ page.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <link
+ linkend="accept-intercepted-requests">accept-intercepted-requests</link>
+ which allows to combine Privoxy with any packet filter to create an
+ intercepting proxy for HTTP/1.1 requests (and for HTTP/1.0 requests
+ with Host header set). This means clients can be forced to use
+ &my-app; even if their proxy settings are configured differently.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <link
+ linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
+ to designate an alternate location for &my-app;'s
+ locally customized CGI templates so that
+ these are not overwritten during upgrades.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ A new command line option <literal>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</literal> to
+ initialize the resolver library before chroot'ing. On some systems this
+ reduces the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
+ (Patch provided by Stephen Gildea)
</para>
</listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- There are a number of new <link linkend="actions-file">actions</link>:
- </para>
-
- <para>
- <itemizedlist>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="crunch-client-header">crunch-client-header</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="crunch-server-header">crunch-server-header</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="hide-accept-language">hide-accept-language</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="hide-content-disposition">hide-content-disposition</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="inspect-jpegs">inspect-jpegs</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </para>
- <para>
- In addition, <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects</link></literal>
- has been significantly improved with enhanced syntax.
- </para>
+ <listitem>
<para>
- And <literal><link linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal>
- has a new option, <literal>conditional block</literal>.
- </para>
-
- </listitem>
+ The <link
+ linkend="forward-override">forward-override</link> action
+ allows changing of the forwarding settings through the actions files.
+ Combined with tags, this allows to choose the forwarder based on
+ client headers like the <literal>User-Agent</literal>, or the request origin.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- <application>MS-Windows</application> versions can now be
- <link
- linkend="installation-pack-win">installed and
- started as a <emphasis>Windows service</emphasis></link>.
+ The <link
+ linkend="redirect">redirect</link> action can now use regular
+ expression substitutions against the original URL.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- <filename>config</filename> has two new options:
- <link
- linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
- and <link
- linkend="forwarded-connect-retries">forwarded-connect-retries</link>.
+ <application>zlib</application> support is now available as a compile
+ time option to filter compressed content. Patch provided by Wil Mahan.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Improve various filters, and add new ones.
</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+
+ <listitem>
<para>
- And there is improved handling of the <link
- linkend="user-manual">user-manual</link>
- option, for placing documentation and help files on the local system.
+ Include support for RFC 3253 so that <filename>Subversion</filename> works
+ with &my-app;. Patch provided by Petr Kadlec.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- Actions files problems and suggestions are now being directed to:
- <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288</ulink>.
- Please use this to report such configuration related problems as missed
- ads, sites that don't function properly due to one action or another,
- innocent images being blocked, etc.
+ Logging can be completely turned off by not specifying a logfile directive.
</para>
</listitem>
-
+
+
<listitem>
<para>
- In addition, there are numerous bug fixes and significant enhancements,
- including error pages should no longer be cached if the problem is fixed,
- much better DNS error handling, and various logging improvements.
+ A number of improvements to Privoxy's internal CGI pages, including the
+ use of favicons for error and control pages.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
- releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
- users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
- standards and past practices. See <ulink
- url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
- http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
- should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
+ Many bugfixes, memory leaks addressed, code improvements, and logging
+ improvements.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
+<para>
+ For a more detailed list of changes please have a look at the ChangeLog.
+</para>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<para>
<itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
+ configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
+ is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
+ <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
+ most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
+ files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
+ to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
+ &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- Some installers may remove earlier versions completely, including
- configuration files. Save any important configuration files!
+ Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
+ including configuration files, therefore you should really save
+ any important configuration files!
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- On the other hand, other installers may not overwrite any existing configuration
- files, thinking you will want to do that. You may want to manually check
- your saved files against the newer versions to see if the improvements have
- merit, or whether there are new options that you may want to consider.
- There are a number of new features, but most won't be available unless
- these features are incorporated into your configuration somehow.
+ On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
+ files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>
- See the full documentation on
- <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects</link></literal>
- which has changed syntax, and will require adjustments to local configs,
- such as <filename>user.action</filename>. You must reference the new
- syntax:
- </para>
- <para>
- <screen>
- { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
- .example.com
- mybank.com
- .google.</screen>
-</para>
+ <para>
+ <filename>standard.action</filename> now only includes the enabled actions.
+ Not all actions as before.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
+ You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
+ of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
+ logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
+ as expected.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
- </listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- The <filename>jarfile</filename>,
- <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> logger, is off by default now.
+ Three other config file settings are now off by default:
+ <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
+ <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
+ and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
+ If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
+ be aware of the security issues involved.
</para>
</listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and
+ <quote>filter-server-headers</quote> actions that were introduced with
+ <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply content filters to
+ the headers have been removed and replaced with new actions.
+ See the <link
+ linkend="whatsnew">What's New section</link> above.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+
+<!--
<listitem>
<para>
What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
- There are also a number of new actions you may want to consider, most of
- which are not incorporated into the default settings as yet (see above).
+ There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
+ consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
+ settings as yet (see above).
</para>
</listitem>
-
+-->
+<!--
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
+ releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
+ users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
+ standards and past practices. See <ulink
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
+ http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
+ should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
+ subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
+ that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
+ use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
+ .google.</screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
+ to turn off compression for all sites in
+ <filename>default.action</filename> (or
+ <filename>user.action</filename>).
+ </para>
+
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
+ off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
+ to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+
<listitem>
<para>
-<!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
-<!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
Some installers may not automatically start
<application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
</para>
</listitem>
+-->
</itemizedlist>
</para>
+
</sect2>
</sect1>
by setting the proxy configuration for address of
<literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
<emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
- any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)! It won't work!
+ any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
+ browser from using these protocols.
</para>
</listitem>
A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
- to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
+ to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
+ to enable the
+ <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
+ Be sure to read the warnings first.
</para>
<para>
See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
- Action</link></quote> has hints how to understand and debug actions that
+ Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
<quote>misbehave</quote>.
</para>
</listitem>
+<!--
+ Did anyone test these lately?
+ fk 2007-11-10
<listitem>
<para>
For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
personal toolbar.
</para>
</listitem>
+-->
<listitem>
<para>
Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
</para>
</listitem>
-
+
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
- things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
+ things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
+ may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
<quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
- such embedded URLs.
+ such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
+ instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
+ server are blocked.
</para>
<para>
- The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <literal><link
+ The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
- linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>, and
+ linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
+ <literal><link
+ linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
<literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
</para>
<listitem>
<para>
- <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this action stops
- any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
- action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
- that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
- communication with the remote server and sends <application>Privoxy</application>'s
- own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened.
+ <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
+ the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
+ This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
+ that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
+ but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
+ stops any communication with the remote server and sends
+ <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
+ let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
</para>
</listitem>
</para>
</listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
+ sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
+ HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
<listitem>
<para>
<literal><link
</itemizedlist>
</para>
+<para>
+ Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
+ <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
+ are very different from <literal><link
+ linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
+ A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
+ are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
+ filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
+ <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
+ used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
+ some pitfalls to be wary off.
+</para>
+
<para>
The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
(shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
- is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
- appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
+ is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
+ action editor is disabled by default. Check the
+ <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
+ section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
+ cases it's safe to enable again.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
+ <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
<quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
</para>
+<para>
+ There are also various
+ <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
+ (filters are a special subset of actions). These
+ fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
+ depth in later sections.
+</para>
</sect2>
<para>
- With <application>Firefox</application>, this can be set under:
+ With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
+</para>
+
+<literallayout>
+ <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
+
+</literallayout>
+
+<para>
+ Or optionally on some platforms:
</para>
<literallayout>
- <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
+ <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
</literallayout>
</literallayout>
<para>
- For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-6</application>:
+ For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
</para>
<literallayout>
</para>
<sect2 id="start-redhat">
-<title>Red Hat, Fedora and Conectiva</title>
+<title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
<para>
A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
</para>
</sect2>
-<sect2 id="start-suse">
-<title>SuSE</title>
-<para>
-We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
-as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
-your PC.
-</para>
-<para>
- <screen>
- # rcprivoxy start
-</screen>
-</para>
-</sect2>
-
<sect2 id="start-windows">
<title>Windows</title>
<para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="start-macosx">
-<title>Mac OSX</title>
+<title>Mac OS X</title>
<para>
During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
start automatically when the system restarts. To start &my-app; manually,
</para>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
- the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
- you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
+ <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
+ features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
+ with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
(like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
-
</para>
<para>
On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
-
</para>
<para>
After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
</para>
</listitem>
- <listitem>
+ <listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
-
</para>
<para>
Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
Unix only.
</para>
</listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
+ resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
+ libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
+ the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
+ your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
+ (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
+ but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
your browser.
</para>
+<para>
+ Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
+ in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
+ Check the
+ <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
+ and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
+</para>
+
</sect2>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
<filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
- upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
+ upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is only for
<application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
</para>
<para>
</para>
<para>
- The syntax of all configuration files has remained the same throughout the
- 3.x series. There have been enhancements, but no changes that would preclude
- the use of any configuration file from one version to the next. (There is
- one exception: <link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">+fast-redirects</link> which
- has enhanced syntax and will require updating any local configs from earlier
- versions.)
+ The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
+ Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
+ <!-- Add link to documentation-->
</para>
<para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor
+ <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used only by the web based editor
at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>,
to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
<literal>Cautious</literal> (versions prior to 3.0.5 were set to
<literal>Medium</literal>). New users should try this for a while before
- adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels.
+ adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
+ the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
+ not working as they should.
</para>
<para>
The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
- a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently there will be
- less of a chance for accidental problems. The <guibutton>Medium</guibutton>
- button sets the list to a medium level of ad blocking and a low level set of
- privacy features. The <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button
- sets the list to a high level of ad blocking and medium level of
- privacy. See the chart below. The latter three buttons over-ride
- any changes via with the <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More
- fine-tuning can be done in the lower sections of this internal page.
+ ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
+ there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
+ <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
+ other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
+ <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
+ ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
+ three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
+ <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
+ lower sections of this internal page.
</para>
<para>
It is not recommend to edit the <filename>standard.action</filename> file
</para>
<para>
The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
- <filename>standard.action</filename> are:
+ <filename>standard.action</filename> are<!-- different than this table which is out of date -->:
</para>
<para>
<table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
<entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
<entry>blocks only</entry>
<entry>blocks only</entry>
- <entry>all</entry>
+ <entry>blocks only</entry>
</row>
<row>
<row>
<entry>HTML taming</entry>
<entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
+ <entry>no</entry>
<entry>yes</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
<entry>no</entry>
- <entry>yes</entry>
+ <entry>no</entry>
<entry>yes</entry>
</row>
<para>
The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
- <filename>default.action</filename> is typically process before
+ <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
<filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
edited from <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
- matches a given URL, wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
+ matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
(defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
followed by any exceptions (typically also in
<filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
<filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
- with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
+ with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
</para>
<para>
Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
- just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
+ just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
- written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
+ written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
of actions</link>.
</para>
will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
- your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
+ your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
</para>
<para>
The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
- The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
- per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
- <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Advanced</quote>.
- Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more aggressive, and
- will be more likely to cause problems for some sites. Experienced users only!
-</para>
+ Note: the config file option <link
+ linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
+ this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
+ feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
+ like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
+ <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
+ aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
+ Experienced users only!
+ </para>
<para>
If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
<sect2 id="actions-apply">
-<title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
+<title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
<para>
Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
- Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
+ Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
</para>
<para>
To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
- compared to all patterns in each <quote>action file</quote> file. Every time it matches, the list of
- applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
- of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
- the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
- the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
- a heading line of <literal>{
+ compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
+ Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
+ incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
+ pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
+ the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
+ E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
+<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
then later another one with just <literal>{
+<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
</para>
<para>
- You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
+ You can trace this process for
URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
</para>
</para>
<para>
- Generally, a <application>Privoxy</application> pattern has the form
+ Generally, an URL pattern has the form
<literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
<literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
+ <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
+ whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
+ <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
<term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
+ matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
a mistake.
</para>
<term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
- <literal>.example.com</literal>
+ matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
+ and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
+ For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
+ <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
+ Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<listitem>
<para>
matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
- <literal>www.</literal>
+ <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
+ <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
- While flexibile, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
+ While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
</para>
</sect3>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html</literal></term>
+ <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html</literal></term>
+ <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
</sect3>
+<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
+
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
+
+<para>
+ Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
+ request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
+ <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
+ or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
+ can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
+ including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
+ path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
+ automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
+ you have to do it yourself if you need it).
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
+ your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
+ <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
+ match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
+ <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
+ but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
+ always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
+ of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
+ tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
+ taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ For example you could tag client requests which use the
+ <literal>POST</literal> method,
+ then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
+ are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
+ the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
+ you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
+ method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
+ The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
+ the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
+ indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
+ make too much sense.
+</para>
+
+</sect3>
+
</sect2>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
</para>
<para>
- Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
+ Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
</para>
</listitem>
<para>
If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
- normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
+ normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
files will give a good starting point).
</para>
<para>
- Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
- to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
+ Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
+ So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
- URL pattern to match more than one pattern and thus more than one set of
- actions! Last match wins.
+ URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
+ regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
+ match wins.
</para>
<!-- start actions listing -->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
-<!--
-new action
--->
-<title>content-type-overwrite</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
+<title>client-header-filter</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
+ <para>
+ Rewrite or remove single client headers.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
+ All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
+ the specified regular expression based substitutions.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type:</term>
- <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
<listitem>
<para>Parameterized.</para>
</listitem>
<term>Parameter:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Any string.
- </para>
+ The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
+ <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
- browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
- header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
- displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
- supported by the browser.
- </para>
- <para>
- The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
- the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
- many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
- If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
- XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
- </para>
- <para>
- If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
- <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
- to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
- the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
- If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
+ Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
+ all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
+ you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
+ You can do that by using tags though.
</para>
<para>
- You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
- error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
- as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
- <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
+ Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
+ and use their output as input.
</para>
<para>
- By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
- <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
- If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
- <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
- This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
+ If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
+ one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
+ back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
</para>
<para>
- Most of the time it's easier to enable
- <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
- and replace this action with a custom regular expression. It allows you
- to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
- only replace the content types you aimed at.
+ Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
+ to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
+ create your own.
</para>
- <para>
- Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
+
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Example usage (section):</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+# Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
+{+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
+/
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+</variablelist>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
+<title>client-header-tagger</title>
+
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Typical use:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Block requests based on their headers.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
+ the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
+ tag.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type:</term>
+ <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Parameterized.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Parameter:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
+ <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
+ and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
+ the original.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
+ and their tags can be used to control every other action.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Example usage (section):</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+# Tag every request with the User-Agent header
+{+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
+/
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+</variablelist>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
+<title>content-type-overwrite</title>
+
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Typical use:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type:</term>
+ <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Parameterized.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Parameter:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Any string.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
+ browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
+ header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
+ displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
+ supported by the browser.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
+ the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
+ many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
+ If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
+ XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
+ <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
+ to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
+ the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
+ If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
+ error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
+ as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
+ <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
+ <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
+ If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
+ <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
+ This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
+ <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
+ It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
+ only replace the content types you aimed at.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
more work to get the same precision.
</para>
<listitem>
<para>
<screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
-{+content-type-overwrite {application/xml}}
+{ +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
www.example.net/
# but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
{-content-type-overwrite}
-www.example.net/*.\.css$
-www.example.net/*.style
+www.example.net/.*\.css$
+www.example.net/.*style
</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<para>
<literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
- parts of them, you should enable
- <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
- and create your own filter.
+ parts of them, you should use a
+ <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
</para>
<warning>
<para>
<listitem>
<para>
<screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
-{+crunch-client-header {Privacy-Violation:}}
+{ +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
/
</screen>
</para>
</para>
<para>
It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
- replacement.
+ replacement (unlikely but possible).
</para>
<para>
Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
- isn't blocked as well.
+ isn't blocked or missing as well.
</para>
<para>
It is recommended to use this action together with
<term>Example usage (section):</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents without being tracked across sessions
-{+hide-if-modified-since {-60} \
-+overwrite-last-modified {randomize} \
-+crunch-if-none-match}
+ <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
+# allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
+{+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
+ +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
+ +crunch-if-none-match}
/ </screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
+ Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
- <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
+ This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
+ <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
<literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
- Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
+ Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
</para>
<para>
It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
<para>
<literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
- parts of them, you should enable
- <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
- and create your own filter.
+ parts of them, you should use a custom
+ <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
</para>
<warning>
<para>
<listitem>
<para>
<screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
-{+crunch-server-header {no-cache}}
+{ +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
/ </screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
+ Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
- <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
+ This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
+ <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
<literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
- Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
+ Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
</para>
<para>
It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
- out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
- is a chance you might need this action.
+ out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
+ so there is a chance you might need this action.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
- or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. It is possible to fix these redirected
- requests with <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
- but it requires a little effort.
+ or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
+ first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
+ to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
</para>
<para>
To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
<para>
<screen>
{ +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
- .example.com
+ one.example.com
{ +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
another.example.com/testing</screen>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
+ <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
+ do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- All files of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which this
- action applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression
- based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
+ All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
+ this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
+ expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
- <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they
- don't know.) By default, filtering works only on the raw document content
- itself (that which can be seen with <literal>View Source</literal>),
- not the headers.
+ <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Parameter:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
+ The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
<literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
<ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
Expressions</quote></ulink> and
<ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
- This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive. Use
- with caution.
+ This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
+ Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
+ <quote>action</quote> is not available.
</para>
<para>
The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
</para>
<para>
- At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot uncompress compressed
- documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
- would normally be sent compressed, use the
- <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
+ Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
+ is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
+ in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
+ it.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
+ as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
+ you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
</para>
<para>
- Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
+ Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
<literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
</para>
<para>
<anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
- <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows</screen>
+ <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
</para>
<para>
<anchor id="filter-all-popups">
- <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML</screen>
+ <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
</para>
<para>
<anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
</para>
<para>
<anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
- <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
+ <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable a known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-</variablelist>
-</sect3>
-
-
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter-client-headers">
-<title>filter-client-headers</title>
-
-<variablelist>
- <varlistentry>
- <term>Typical use:</term>
- <listitem>
<para>
- To apply filtering to the client's (browser's) headers
+ <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
+ <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Custom filters for specific site related problems</screen>
</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>Effect:</term>
- <listitem>
<para>
- By default, <application>Privoxy's</application> filters only apply
- to the document content itself. This will extend those filters to
- include the client's headers as well.
+ <anchor id="filter-google">
+ <screen>+filter{google} # Removes text ads and other Google specific improvements</screen>
</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>Type:</term>
- <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
- <listitem>
- <para>Boolean.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>Parameter:</term>
- <listitem>
<para>
- N/A
+ <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
+ <screen>+filter{yahoo} # Removes text ads and other Yahoo specific improvements</screen>
</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
-<varlistentry>
- <term>Notes:</term>
- <listitem>
<para>
- Regular expressions can be used to filter headers as well. Check your
- filters closely before activating this action, as it can easily lead to broken
- requests.
- </para>
- <para>
- These filters are applied to each header on its own, not to them
- all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
- you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is
- z.
+ <anchor id="filter-msn">
+ <screen>+filter{msn} # Removes text ads and other MSN specific improvements</screen>
</para>
<para>
- The filters are used after the other header actions have finished and can
- use their output as input.
+ <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
+ <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up Blogspot blogs</screen>
</para>
-
<para>
- Whenever possible one should specify <literal>^</literal>,
- <literal>$</literal>, the whole header name and the colon, to make sure
- the filter doesn't cause havoc to other headers or the
- page itself. For example if you want to transform
- <application>Galeon</application> User-Agents to
- <application>Firefox</application> User-Agents you
- shouldn't use:
-</para>
-<para>
-<screen>
-s@Galeon/\d\.\d\.\d @@
-</screen>
-</para><para>
- but:
-</para><para>
-<screen>
-s@^(User-Agent:.*) Galeon/\d\.\d\.\d (Firefox/\d\.\d\.\d\.\d)$@$1 $2@
-</screen>
-</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>Example usage (section):</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- <screen>
-{+filter-client-headers +filter{test_filter}}
-problem-host.example.com
- </screen>
- </para>
+ <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
+ <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes from anchor and area tags</screen>
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter-server-headers">
-<title>filter-server-headers</title>
-
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
+<title>force-text-mode</title>
+<!--
+new action
+-->
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- To apply filtering to the server's headers
- </para>
+ <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- By default, <application>Privoxy's</application> filters only apply
- to the document content itself. This will extend those filters to
- include the server's headers as well.
- </para>
+ Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type:</term>
- <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
<listitem>
<para>Boolean.</para>
</listitem>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
-<varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Similar to <literal>filter-client-headers</literal>, but works on
- the server instead. To filter both server and client, use both.
- </para>
- <para>
- As with <literal>filter-client-headers</literal>, check your
- filters before activating this action, as it can easily lead to broken
- requests.
- </para>
- <para>
- These filters are applied to each header on its own, not to them
- all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
- you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is
- z.
- </para>
- <para>
- The filters are used after the other header actions have finished and can
- use their output as input.
- </para>
- <para>
- Remember too, whenever possible one should specify <literal>^</literal>,
- <literal>$</literal>, the whole header name and the colon, to make sure
- the filter doesn't cause havoc to other headers or the
- page itself. See above for example.
+ As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
+ <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
+ in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
+ <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
+ <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
+ without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
</para>
-
+ <warning>
+ <para>
+ Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
+ with regular expressions can cause file damage.
+ </para>
+ </warning>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
+
<varlistentry>
- <term>Example usage (section):</term>
+ <term>Example usage:</term>
<listitem>
+ <para>
<screen>
-{+filter-server-headers +filter{test_filter}}
-problem-host.example.com
- </screen>
- </para>
++force-text-mode
+ </screen>
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
-<title>force-text-mode</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
+<title>forward-override</title>
<!--
new action
-->
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
+ <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
+ Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Type:</term>
<!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
<listitem>
- <para>Boolean.</para>
+ <para>Multi-value.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Parameter:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- N/A
- </para>
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
+ 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
+ to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
+ for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
+ listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
+ Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
+ (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
+ for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
- <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
- in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
- <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
- <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
- without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
+ This action takes parameters similar to the
+ <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
+ file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
+ used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
</para>
<warning>
<para>
- Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
- with regular expressions can cause file damage.
+ Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
+ using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
+ chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
+ in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
+ to exit.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
+ to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
</para>
</warning>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<screen>
-+force-text-mode
+# Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
+# <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
+# resuming downloads continues to work.
+# This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
+# without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
+# or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
+# Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
+# values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
+{+forward-override{forward .} \
+ -hide-if-modified-since \
+ -overwrite-last-modified \
+}
+TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<para>
This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
- the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
+ the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
</para>
Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
+ And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
+ BLOCKED message in frames.
</para>
<para>
The content type for the empty document can be specified with
# blocked as images:
#
{+block +handle-as-image}
-some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
+some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
# Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
ad.doubleclick.net
to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
it up.
</para>
+ <para>
+ This action will probably be removed in the future,
+ use server-header filters instead.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<listitem>
<para>
<screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
-{-filter\
-+content-type-overwrite {text/plain}\
-+hide-content-disposition {block} }
-.sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php</screen>
+{ -filter \
+ +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
+ +hide-content-disposition{block} }
+ .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</para>
<para>
Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
- sure it isn't used as a cookie replacement, but you will run into
- caching problems if the random range is too high.
+ it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
+ but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
</para>
<para>
It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
</para>
<para>
It is also recommended to use this action together with
- <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
+ <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
+ otherwise it's more or less pointless.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Example usage (section):</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
-{+hide-if-modified-since {-60}\
-+overwrite-last-modified {randomize}\
-+crunch-if-none-match}
+ <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
+{+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
+ +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
+ +crunch-if-none-match}
/</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
<title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
-<!--
-new action
--->
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
+ <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
- and prevents adding a new one.
+ Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- It is fairly safe to leave this on.
- </para>
- <para>
- This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
- <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
- to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
- users sharing the same proxy.
+ It is safe and recommended to leave this on.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<listitem>
<para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
</listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
+ </listitem>
<listitem>
<para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
</listitem>
<para>
Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
- requests, in an attempt to prevent their valuable content from being
+ requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
embedded or linked to elsewhere.
</para>
<para>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
+ <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
work browser-independently).
- <!--
- <ulink url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
- that</ulink>!).
- -->
</para>
</warning>
<para>
(Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
</para>
<para>
- This action is scheduled for improvement.
+ More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
+ <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
+ and
+ <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="inspect-jpegs">
<title>inspect-jpegs</title>
-<!--
-new action
--->
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>To protect against the MS buffer over-run in JPEG processing</para>
+ <para>Try to protect against a MS buffer over-run in JPEG processing</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
allow execution of code on the target system, giving an attacker access
to the system in question by merely planting an altered JPEG image, which
would have no obvious indications of what lurks inside. This action
- prevents unwanted intrusion.
+ tries to prevent this exploit if delivered through unencrypted HTTP.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Note that the exploit mentioned is several years old
+ and it's unlikely that your client is still vulnerable
+ against it. This action may be removed in one of the
+ next releases.
</para>
</listitem>
</sect3>
-
-
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
<title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
- </literal> does a fairly good job of catching only the unwanted ones.
+ </literal> does a better job of catching only the unwanted ones.
</para>
<para>
If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
instead.
</para>
-
- <!--
<para>
- An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
- interchangeable.
+ This action is most appropriate for browsers that don't have any controls
+ for unwanted pop-ups. Not recommended for general usage.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This action doesn't work very reliable and may be removed in future releases.
</para>
- -->
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
(<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
- This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
- abused as TCP relays very easily.
+ This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
</para>
<para>
<application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
<listitem>
<para>
More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
- is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
+ is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
- and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
- <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
- Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
- re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
- those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
+ and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions need
+ access to the uncompressed data.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
+ filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
+ If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
+ support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
</para>
<para>
- This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
- actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
- with them.
+ Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
+ for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
+ unusual.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
+ enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
+ predefined action settings.
</para>
<para>
Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
- documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
- per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
+ documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
+ some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
+ <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
+ exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Example usage (sections):</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- <screen># Set default:
+ <screen>
+# Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
#
-{+prevent-compression}
-/ # Match all sites
+{ +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
+# Match only these sites
+ .google.
+ sourceforge.net
+ sf.net
-# Make exceptions for ill sites:
+# Or instead, we could set a universal default:
#
-{-prevent-compression}
-www.debianhelp.org
-www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
+{ +prevent-compression }
+ / # Match all sites
+
+# Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
+#
+{ -prevent-compression }
+.compusa.com/</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<listitem>
<para>
<screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
-{+hide-if-modified-since {-60}\
-+overwrite-last-modified {randomize}\
-+crunch-if-none-match}
+{ +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
+ +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
+ +crunch-if-none-match}
/</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<term>Parameter:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Any URL.
+ An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
+ HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
+ either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
+ single pcrs command to the original URL.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This action will be ignored if you use it together with
+ <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
+ It can be combined with
+ <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
+ to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
+ and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
+ possible to fingerprint your requests.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Example usages:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
+{ +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
+ example.com/stylesheet\.css
+
+# Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
+# (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
+{ +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
+ a
+
+# Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
+# (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
+# the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
+{+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
+undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$</screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+</variablelist>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
+<title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
+
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Typical use:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
+ on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type:</term>
+ <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Boolean.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Parameter:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ N/A
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- This action is useful to replace whole documents with ones of your
- choosing. This can be used to enforce safe surfing, or just as a simple
- convenience.
+ The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Example usage:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+</variablelist>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
+<title>send-wafer</title>
+
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Typical use:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type:</term>
+ <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Multi-value.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Parameter:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
+ class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
<para>
- You can do the same by combining the actions
- <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
- <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> and
- <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{URL}</link></literal>.
- It doesn't sound right for non-image documents, and that's why this action
- was created.
+ Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
+ resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
</para>
<para>
- This action will be ignored if you use it together with
- <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
+ This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
<varlistentry>
- <term>Example usages:</term>
+ <term>Example usage (section):</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
-{ +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
- example.com/stylesheet.css
-
-# Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
-{ +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
- a</screen>
+ <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
+my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
-<title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
+<title>server-header-filter</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
+ Rewrite or remove single server headers.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
- on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
+ All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
+ through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type:</term>
- <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
<listitem>
- <para>Boolean.</para>
+ <para>Parameterized.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Parameter:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- N/A
+ The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
+ <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
+ Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
+ all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
+ you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
+ You can do that by using tags though.
</para>
<para>
- This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
+ Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
+ and use their output as input.
</para>
- </listitem>
+ <para>
+ Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
+ to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
+ create your own.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term>Example usage:</term>
+ <term>Example usage (section):</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
- </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+{+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
+example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
+
+{+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
+example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
+ </screen>
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
-<title>send-wafer</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
+<title>server-header-tagger</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Typical use:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
+ Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
+ Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
+ the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
+ tag.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type:</term>
- <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
+ <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
<listitem>
- <para>Multi-value.</para>
+ <para>Parameterized.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Parameter:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
- class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
+ The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
+ <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
- resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
+ Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
+ and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
+ the original.
</para>
<para>
- This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
+ Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
+ that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
+ all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
+ and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
+ and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
</para>
- </listitem>
+ <para>
+ Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
+ doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
+ </para>
+
+ </listitem>
</varlistentry>
+
<varlistentry>
<term>Example usage (section):</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
-my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
- </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+# Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
+{+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
+/
+ </screen>
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
+
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
</para>
<para>
- Redirect to the BSD devil:
+ Redirect to the BSD daemon:
</para>
<para>
<screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
For <quote>Connect</quote> requests the clients tell
<application>Privoxy</application> which host they are interested
in, but not which document they plan to get later. As a result, the
- <quote>Go there anyway</quote> link becomes rather useless:
- it lets the client request the home page of the forbidden host
- through unencrypted HTTP, still using the port of the last request.
- </para>
- <para>
- If you previously configured <application>Privoxy</application> to do the
- request through a SSL tunnel, everything will work. Most likely you haven't
- and the server will respond with an error message because it is expecting
- HTTPS (SSL).
+ <quote>Go there anyway</quote> wouldn't work and is therefore suppressed.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
with it.
- This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
</para>
<para>
+crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
-crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
+block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
- mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
+ allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
# These aliases define combinations of actions
# that are useful for certain types of sites:
#
- fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
+ fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
+
shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
# Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
{fragile}
.office.microsoft.com
.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
- .nytimes.com
+ # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
+ mail.google.com
# Shopping sites:
# Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
{shop}
.quietpc.com
.worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
- .scan.co.uk
+ mybank.example.com
# These shops require pop-ups:
#
- {shop -kill-popups -filter{all-popups}}
+ {-kill-popups -filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
.dabs.com
.overclockers.co.uk</screen>
</para>
<para>
- Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
- <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
+ Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
+ <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
in order to function properly.
</para>
</sect2>
<para>
Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
- no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
- to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
+ no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
multiple lines with line continuation.
# "Defaults" section:
##########################################################################
{ \
- -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
- -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
- -<link linkend="CONTENT-TYPE-OVERWRITE">content-type-overwrite</link> \
- -<link linkend="CRUNCH-CLIENT-HEADER">crunch-client-header</link> \
- -<link linkend="CRUNCH-IF-NONE-MATCH">crunch-if-none-match</link> \
- -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
- -<link linkend="CRUNCH-SERVER-HEADER">crunch-server-header</link> \
- -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
+<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
- -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
- +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link> \
- +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-EVENTS">filter{js-events}</link> \
+<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
+<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
- +<link linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{unsolicited-popups}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> \
- +<link linkend="FILTER-IMG-REORDER">filter{img-reorder}</link> \
- +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">filter{banners-by-link}</link> \
+<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-TINY-TEXTFORMS">filter{tiny-textforms}</link> \
- +<link linkend="FILTER-JUMPING-WINDOWS">filter{jumping-windows}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-FRAMESET-BORDERS">filter{frameset-borders}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-DEMORONIZER">filter{demoronizer}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-QUICKTIME-KIOSKMODE">filter{quicktime-kioskmode}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
+<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-CLIENT-HEADERS">filter-client-headers</link> \
- -<link linkend="FILTER-SERVER-HEADERS">filter-server-headers</link> \
- -<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> \
- -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT">handle-as-empty-document</link> \
- -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
- -<link linkend="HIDE-ACCEPT-LANGUAGE">hide-accept-language</link> \
- -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link> \
- -<link linkend="HIDE-IF-MODIFIED-SINCE">hide-if-modified-since</link> \
+<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
+<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
+<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
- -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
- -<link linkend="INSPECT-JPEGS">inspect-jpegs</link> \
- -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
- -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
+<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
- -<link linkend="OVERWRITE-LAST-MODIFIED">overwrite-last-modified</link> \
- -<link linkend="REDIRECT">redirect</link> \
- -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
- -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
+<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
+<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
- -<link linkend="TREAT-FORBIDDEN-CONNECTS-LIKE-BLOCKS">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link> \
}
/ # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
</para>
<para>
- The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
+ The default behavior is now set.
+ <!--
+ This needs rewording, but it can wait for now.
+ fk 2007-11-17
+
+ Note that some actions, like not hiding
the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
want to block in later sections.
+ -->
</para>
<para>
#
{ fragile }
.office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
-.windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
+.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
+mail.google.com</screen>
</para>
<para>
.a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
.a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
bs*.gsanet.com
-bs*.einets.com
.qkimg.net</screen>
</para>
<para>
One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
- is to block banners. A huge bunch of them can be <quote>blocked</quote>
+ is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
<literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
</para>
<para>
- First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
+ First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
to keep the example short:
</para>
<para>
- You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
+ It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
{ -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
+adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
.edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
.*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
# Don't filter code!
#
{ -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
-/.*cvs
+/(.*/)?cvs
+bugzilla.
+developer.
+wiki.
.sourceforge.net</screen>
</para>
<para>
<screen>
-# My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
+# My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
</para>
<para>
<para>
<screen>
{ +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
- www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.gif
- another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
+ www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
+ another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
</para>
<para>
<screen>
{ fragile }
.forbes.com
- mail.example.com
+ webmail.example.com
.mybank.com</screen>
</para>
<para>
You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
- but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
- don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
+ but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
+ So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
update-safe config, once and for all:
</para>
<title>Filter Files</title>
<para>
- On-the-fly text substitutions that can be invoked through the
- <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action need
+ On-the-fly text substitutions need
to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
- can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>. Multiple filter files can be
- defined through the <literal> <link
+ can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
+ <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
+ rewrite the content that is send to the client,
+ <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
+ to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
+ <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
+ to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
+ <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
+ and
+ <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
+ Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
+ is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
+ version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
+ applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
+</para>
+
+
+<para>
+ Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
- as supplied by the developers will be found in
+ as supplied by the developers are located in
<filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
<filename>user.filter</filename>.
-
-</para>
+ </para>
<para>
- Typical reasons for doing these kinds of substitutions are to eliminate
- common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
+ Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
+ HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
- or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
+ or just to have fun.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
+ <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
+ of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
+ Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
+ to also filter other content.
</para>
<para>
- Filtering works on any text-based document type, including
- HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
- MIME types, <emphasis>except</emphasis> <literal>text/plain</literal>).
Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
- and, of course, regular expressions. By default, filters are only applied
- to the raw document content, but can be extended to the HTTP headers with
- the supplemental actions:
- <link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link> and
- <link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link>.
+ and, of course, regular expressions.
</para>
<para>
Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
- here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
- <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
- the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
+ here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
+ <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
+ <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
+ followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
<emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
</para>
<para>
- A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
+ Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
+ type, the filter name and the filter description.
+ A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
like this:
</para>
<sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
<para>
- Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
+ Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
<quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
needed:
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
+ <para>
+ Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
+ rely heavily on JavaScript.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<para>
This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
- resizing etc, anymore.
+ resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
</para>
<para>
We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
</para>
<para>
- This filter disables HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets cookies. Use
- it wherever you would also use the cookie crunch actions.
+ This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
+ cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
+ should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
+ use the cookie crunch actions.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</para>
<para>
Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
- function to a dummy function during the loading and rendering phase of each
- HTML page access, and restoring the function afterward.
+ function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
+ during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
+ restoring the function afterward.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
+ reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
+ in order to function normally. Use with caution.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<listitem>
<para>
Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
- Note this should be used with more discretion than the above, since it is
- more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal usage. Use
- with caution.
+ Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
+ it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
+ usage. Use with caution.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
</para>
+ <para>
+ Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
+ block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
- the use ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
+ the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
</para>
<para>
<para>
Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
- or behave as intended when using this filter.
+ or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- A collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
+ An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
</para>
<para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
+ and the toolbar advertisement.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
+ a width limitation as well.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
+ tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
+ page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
+ appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
+ that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
+ anchor and area HTML tags.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
+ found in Host and Referer headers.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
+ is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
+ to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
+ <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
+ whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
+ for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
+ server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
+ protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
+ the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
+ to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
+ the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
+ to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
+ the request is coming from.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
<!--
<varlistentry>
<term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
<para>
The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
- or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
- edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
- (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
- just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
- ignored when the templates are filled in.
+ or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
+ is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
+ to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
+ user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
+ the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
+ to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
+ during upgrades.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
+ with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
</para>
<para>
<listitem>
<para>
- Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
- to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
+ Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
+ <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
+ continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
+ place:
</para>
<blockquote>
<para>
<sect2 id="chain">
<title>Chain of Events</title>
<para>
- Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
- requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
+ Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
+ page is requested by your browser:
</para>
<para>
linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
- is then checked and if it does not match, an
- HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
- an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
- linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
+ and
+ <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
+ are then checked, and if there is no match, an
+ HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
+ it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
+ document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
+ <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
(blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
</para>
</listitem>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
- data).
+ Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
+ page).
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
+ If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
or <link
linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
<application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
</para>
<para>
- If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
+ If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
or <link
linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
- frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
- request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
- complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
+ frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
+ separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
+ complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
+ secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
+ differing set of actions is triggered.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
+<para>
+ NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
+ request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
+</para>
</sect2>
or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
- logs is a good idea too.
+ logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
+ enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
+ turned <quote>on</quote>.)
</para>
<para>
Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
<para>
<screen>
- Matches for http://google.com:
+ Matches for http://www.google.com:
In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
- {-add-header
- -block
- -content-type-overwrite
- -crunch-client-header
- -crunch-if-none-match
- -crunch-incoming-cookies
- -crunch-outgoing-cookies
- -crunch-server-header
- +deanimate-gifs {last}
- -downgrade-http-version
+ {+deanimate-gifs {last}
+fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
- -filter {js-events}
- -filter {content-cookies}
- -filter {all-popups}
- -filter {banners-by-link}
- -filter {tiny-textforms}
- -filter {frameset-borders}
- -filter {demoronizer}
- -filter {shockwave-flash}
- -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
- -filter {fun}
- -filter {crude-parental}
- -filter {site-specifics}
- +filter {js-annoyances}
- +filter {html-annoyances}
+filter {refresh-tags}
- +filter {unsolicited-popups}
+filter {img-reorder}
+filter {banners-by-size}
+filter {webbugs}
+filter {jumping-windows}
+filter {ie-exploits}
- -filter-client-headers
- -filter-server-headers
- -force-text-mode
- -handle-as-empty-document
- -handle-as-image
- -hide-accept-language
- -hide-content-disposition
+hide-forwarded-for-headers
+hide-from-header {block}
- -hide-if-modified-since
+hide-referrer {forge}
- -hide-user-agent
- -inspect-jpegs
- -kill-popups
- -limit-connect
- -overwrite-last-modified
- +prevent-compression
- -redirect
- -send-vanilla-wafer
- -send-wafer
+session-cookies-only
+set-image-blocker {pattern}
- -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks }
/
{ -session-cookies-only }
-add-header
-block
+ -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
-content-type-overwrite
-crunch-client-header
-crunch-if-none-match
+deanimate-gifs {last}
-downgrade-http-version
-fast-redirects
- +filter {js-annoyances}
- +filter {html-annoyances}
+ -filter {js-events}
+ -filter {content-cookies}
+ -filter {all-popups}
+ -filter {banners-by-link}
+ -filter {tiny-textforms}
+ -filter {frameset-borders}
+ -filter {demoronizer}
+ -filter {shockwave-flash}
+ -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
+ -filter {fun}
+ -filter {crude-parental}
+ -filter {site-specifics}
+ -filter {js-annoyances}
+ -filter {html-annoyances}
+filter {refresh-tags}
- +filter {unsolicited-popups}
+ -filter {unsolicited-popups}
+filter {img-reorder}
+filter {banners-by-size}
+filter {webbugs}
+filter {jumping-windows}
+filter {ie-exploits}
- -filter-client-headers
- -filter-server-headers
+ -filter {google}
+ -filter {yahoo}
+ -filter {msn}
+ -filter {blogspot}
+ -filter {no-ping}
-force-text-mode
-handle-as-empty-document
-handle-as-image
-kill-popups
-limit-connect
-overwrite-last-modified
- +prevent-compression
+ -prevent-compression
-redirect
-send-vanilla-wafer
-send-wafer
+ -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
+ -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
-session-cookies-only
+set-image-blocker {pattern}
-treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks </screen>
{-add-header
-block
+ -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
-content-type-overwrite
-crunch-client-header
-crunch-if-none-match
-crunch-server-header
+deanimate-gifs
-downgrade-http-version
- +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}
- +filter{html-annoyances}
- +filter{js-annoyances}
- +filter{kill-popups}
- +filter{webbugs}
- +filter{nimda}
- +filter{banners-by-size}
- +filter{hal}
- +filter{fun}
- -filter-client-headers
- -filter-server-headers
+ +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
+ -filter {js-events}
+ -filter {content-cookies}
+ -filter {all-popups}
+ -filter {banners-by-link}
+ -filter {tiny-textforms}
+ -filter {frameset-borders}
+ -filter {demoronizer}
+ -filter {shockwave-flash}
+ -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
+ -filter {fun}
+ -filter {crude-parental}
+ -filter {site-specifics}
+ -filter {js-annoyances}
+ -filter {html-annoyances}
+ +filter {refresh-tags}
+ -filter {unsolicited-popups}
+ +filter {img-reorder}
+ +filter {banners-by-size}
+ +filter {webbugs}
+ +filter {jumping-windows}
+ +filter {ie-exploits}
+ -filter {google}
+ -filter {yahoo}
+ -filter {msn}
+ -filter {blogspot}
+ -filter {no-ping}
-force-text-mode
-handle-as-empty-document
-handle-as-image
+hide-referer{forge}
-hide-user-agent
-inspect-jpegs
- +kill-popups
+ -kill-popups
-overwrite-last-modified
+prevent-compression
-redirect
-send-vanilla-wafer
- -send-wafer
+ -send-wafer
+ -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
+ -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
+session-cookies-only
+set-image-blocker{blank}
-treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks }
put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
- automatcially in the scope of the action.
+ automatically in the scope of the action.
</para>
<para>
<para>
<emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
<literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
- <quote>.com</quote>. This will effectively match any TLD with
- <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de</literal>,
+ <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
+ <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
just as an example.
</para>
<para>
USA
$Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
+ Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
+ Mention forward-socks5.
+
+ Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
+ Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
+ to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
+
+ Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
+ Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
+
+ Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
+ Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
+
+ Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
+ Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
+
+ Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
+ Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
+ enough.
+
+ Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
+ Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
+
+ Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
+ - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
+ - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
+
+ Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
+ Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
+
+ Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
+ - Mention request rewriting.
+ - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
+ - Minor rewordings.
+
+ Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
+ A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
+
+ Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
+ - Use new action defaults.
+ - Minor fixes and rewordings.
+
+ Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
+ Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
+
+ Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
+ Results of spell check.
+
+ Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
+ - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
+ - Minor rewordings.
+
+ Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
+ Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
+ preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
+
+ Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
+ This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
+ new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
+
+ Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
+ In the first third of the file, mention several times that
+ the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
+
+ Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
+ Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
+
+ Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
+ Update embedded show-url-info output.
+
+ Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
+ Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
+ copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
+
+ Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
+ Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
+ extensive comments moved to user manual.
+
+ Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
+ Minor rewordings and fixes.
+
+ Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
+ - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
+ - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
+ - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
+ leading and trailing space.
+ - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
+ HTTP cookies only.
+ - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
+ that it's only meant to protect against a single
+ exploit.
+
+ Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
+ Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
+
+ Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
+ Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
+ of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
+
+ Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
+ Start to document forward-override{}.
+
+ Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
+ - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
+ - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
+ - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
+
+ Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
+ Some updates regarding header filtering,
+ handling of compressed content and redirect's
+ support for pcrs commands.
+
+ Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
+ Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
+
+ Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
+ Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
+ manual.
+
+ Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
+ Add new filters.
+
+ Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
+ Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
+ compression to make filters work on all sites.
+
+ Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
+ More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
+
+ Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
+ Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
+ touch-ups.
+
+ Revision 2.22 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 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
- Update to Mac OSX startup script name
+ Update to Mac OS X startup script name
Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
- Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
+ Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
Ooops missed something from David.
Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
- Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
+ Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
That's a wrap, I think.
Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
Add AmigaOS install stuff.
Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
- Updated OSX installation section
+ Updated Mac OS X installation section
Added a few English tweaks here an there
Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff