+ 3.25. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
+
+ There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is
+ to allow only "session cookies", which means the cookies only last for the
+ current browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related to
+ cookies. But there may be cases where you want cookies to last.
+
+ To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted,
+ both in and out, for example.com:
+
+ { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
+ .example.com
+
+ Place the above in user.action. Note that some of these may be off by
+ default anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm being
+ explicit in what you want to happen. user.action includes an alias for
+ this situation, called allow-all-cookies.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 3.26. Can I have separate configurations for different users?
+
+ Each instance of Privoxy has its own configuration, including such
+ attributes as the TCP port that it listens on. What you can do is run
+ multiple instances of Privoxy, each with a unique listen-address
+ configuration setting, and configuration path, and then each of these can
+ have their own configurations. Think of it as per-port configuration.
+
+ Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider
+ having groups of users that might share like configurations.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 3.27. Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of "good" sites?
+
+ Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple white-listing.
+ Here's one real easy one:
+
+ ############################################################
+ # Blacklist
+ ############################################################
+ { +block }
+ / # Block *all* URLs
+
+ ############################################################
+ # Whitelist
+ ############################################################
+ { -block }
+ kids.example.com
+ toys.example.com
+ games.example.com
+
+ This allows access to only those three sites by first blocking all URLs,
+ and then subsequently allowing three specific exceptions.
+
+ Another approach is Privoxy's trustfile concept, which incorporates the
+ notion of "trusted referrers". See the Trust documentation for details.
+
+ These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There
+ are various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
+ elsewhere here and in the User Manual) so that users can't modify their
+ own configuration and easily circumvent the whitelist.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 3.28. How can I turn off ad-blocking?
+
+ Ad blocking is achieved through a complex application of various Privoxy
+ actions. These actions are deployed against simple images, banners, flash
+ animations, text pages, JavaScript, pop-ups and pop-unders, etc., so its
+ not as simple as just turning one or two actions off. The various actions
+ that make up Privoxy ad blocking are hard-coded into the default
+ configuration files. It has been assumed that everyone using Privoxy is
+ interested in this particular feature.
+
+ If you want to do without this, there are several approaches you can take:
+ You can manually undo the many block rules in default.action. Or even
+ easier, just create your own default.action file from scratch without the
+ many ad blocking rules, and corresponding exceptions. Or lastly, if you
+ are not concerned about the additional blocks that are done for privacy
+ reasons, you can very easily over-ride all blocking with the following
+ very simple rule in your user.action:
+
+ # Unblock everybody, everywhere
+ { -block }
+ / # UN-Block *all* URLs
+
+ Or even a more comprehensive reversing of various ad related actions:
+
+ # Unblock everybody, everywhere, and turn off appropriate filtering, etc
+ { -block \
+ -filter{banners-by-size} \
+ -filter{banners-by-link} \
+ allow-popups \
+ }
+ / # UN-Block *all* URLs and allow ads
+
+ This last "action" in this compound statement, allow-popups, is an alias
+ that disables various pop-up blocking features.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 3.29. How can I have custom template pages, like the BLOCKED page?
+
+ Privoxy "templates" are specialized text files utilized by Privoxy for
+ various purposes and can easily be modified using any text editor. All the
+ template pages are installed in a sub-directory appropriately named:
+ templates. Knowing something about HTML syntax will of course be helpful.
+
+ Be forewarned that the default templates are subject to being overwritten
+ during upgrades. You can, however, create completely new templates, place
+ them in another directory and specify the alternate path in the main
+ config. For details, have a look at the templdir option.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 3.30. How can I remove the "Go There Anyway" link from the BLOCKED page?
+
+ There is more than one way to do it (although Perl is not involved).
+
+ Editing the BLOCKED template page (see above) may dissuade some users, but
+ this method is easily circumvented. Where you need this level of control,
+ you might want to build Privoxy from source, and disable various features
+ that are available as compile-time options. You should configure the
+ sources as follows:
+
+ ./configure --disable-toggle --disable-editor --disable-force
+
+ This will create an executable with hard-coded security features so that
+ Privoxy does not allow easy bypassing of blocked sites, or changing the
+ current configuration via any connected user's web browser.
+
+ Finally, all of these features can also be toggled on/off via options in
+ Privoxy's main config file which means you don't have to recompile
+ anything.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+4. Miscellaneous
+
+ 4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra time
+ to browsing.
+
+ How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the
+ host system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions
+ are being triggered, the size of the page, the bandwidth of the
+ connection, etc.
+
+ Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually
+ help speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically
+ being retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by
+ Privoxy itself for each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of
+ things, and happens very quickly. This is typically more than offset by
+ time saved not downloading and rendering ad images and other junk content
+ (if ad blocking is being used).
+
+ "Filtering" content via the filter or deanimate-gifs actions may cause a
+ perceived slowdown, since the entire document needs to be buffered before
+ displaying. And on very large documents, filtering may have some
+ measurable impact. How much depends on the page size, the actual
+ definition of the filter(s), etc. See below. Most other actions have
+ little to no impact on speed.
+
+ Also, when filtering is enabled but zlib support isn't available,
+ compression is often disabled (see prevent-compression). This can have an
+ impact on speed as well, although it's probably smaller than you might
+ think. Again, the page size, etc. will determine how much of an impact.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 4.2. I notice considerable delays in page requests. What's wrong?
+
+ If you use any filter action, such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs
+ etc, or the deanimate-gifs action, the entire document must be loaded into
+ memory in order for the filtering mechanism to work, and nothing is sent
+ to the browser during this time.
+
+ The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers,
+ but the feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start
+ rendering incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works".
+ This effect is more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely
+ large documents may have some impact on the time to load the page where
+ there is filtering being done. But overall, the difference should be very
+ minimal. If there is a big impact, then probably some other situation is
+ contributing (like anti-virus software).
+
+ Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note
+ that if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should
+ not be filtered, could be. Privoxy only knows how to differentiate
+ filterable content because of the MIME type as reported by the server, or
+ because of some configuration setting that enables/disables filtering.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/ is the address of Privoxy's built-in user
+ interface, and http://p.p/ is a shortcut for it.
+
+ Since Privoxy sits between your web browser and the Internet, it can
+ simply intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its
+ built-in "web server".
+
+ This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If
+ entering the URL http://config.privoxy.org/ takes you to a page saying
+ "This is Privoxy ...", everything is OK. If you get a page saying "Privoxy
+ is not working" instead, then your browser didn't use Privoxy for the
+ request, hence it could not be intercepted, and you have accessed the real
+ web site at config.privoxy.org.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 4.4. How can I submit new ads, or report problems?
+
+ Please see the Contact section for various ways to interact with the
+ developers.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 4.5. If I do submit missed ads, will they be included in future updates?
+
+ Whether such submissions are eventually included in the default.action
+ configuration file depends on how significant the issue is. We of course
+ want to address any potential problem with major, high-profile sites such
+ as Google, Yahoo, etc. Any site with global or regional reach, has a good
+ chance of being a candidate. But at the other end of the spectrum are any
+ number of smaller, low-profile sites such as for local clubs or schools.
+ Since their reach and impact are much less, they are best handled by
+ inclusion in the user's user.action, and thus would be unlikely to be
+ included.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 4.6. Why doesn't anyone answer my support request?
+
+ Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
+ could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it,
+ no one has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported
+ numerous times already, or because not enough information was provided to
+ help us help you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ 4.7. How can I hide my IP address?
+
+ If you run both the browser and Privoxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
+ address with Privoxy or ultimately any other software alone. The server
+ needs to know your IP address so that it knows where to send the responses
+ back.
+
+ There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which
+ provide a further level of indirection between you and the web server.
+
+ However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need to
+ authenticate, not because they would offer any real anonymity. Most of
+ them will log your IP address and make it available to the authorities in
+ case you violate the law of the country they run in. In fact you can't
+ even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information on
+ (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
+
+ If you want to hide your IP address from most adversaries, you should
+ consider chaining Privoxy with Tor. The configuration details can be found
+ in How do I use Privoxy together with Tor section just below.