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+ <td width="10%" align="left" valign="bottom"><a href="misc.html"
+ accesskey="P">Prev</a></td>
+
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+ accesskey="N">Next</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ </table>
+ <hr class="c1" width="100%">
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT1">
+ <h1 class="SECT1"><a name="TROUBLE" id="TROUBLE">5.
+ Troubleshooting</a></h1>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="AEN1100" id="AEN1100">5.1. I cannot connect
+ to any websites. Or, I am getting <span class="QUOTE">"connection
+ refused"</span> message with every web page. Why?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>There are several possibilities:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not running.
+ Solution: verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
+ installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running. Turn
+ on <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logging, and look at
+ the logs to see what they say.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is using. Solution: verify
+ that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and your browser are
+ set to the same port (<tt class="LITERAL">listen-address</tt>).</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem
+ or a problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution:
+ temporarily alter your configuration and take the forwarders out of
+ the equation.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you.
+ Solution: try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple
+ test.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
</div>
- <div class="SECT1">
- <h1 class="SECT1">
- <a name="TROUBLE">5. Troubleshooting</a>
- </h1>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="AEN1091">5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am
- getting <span class="QUOTE">"connection refused"</span> message
- with every web page. Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- There are several possibilities:
- </p>
- <ul>
- <li>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not running.
- Solution: verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running.
- Turn on <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logging, and
- look at the logs to see what they say.
- </p>
- </li>
- <li>
- <p>
- Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is using. Solution:
- verify that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and your
- browser are set to the same port (<tt class=
- "LITERAL">listen-address</tt>).
- </p>
- </li>
- <li>
- <p>
- Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem
- or a problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution:
- temporarily alter your configuration and take the forwarders
- out of the equation.
- </p>
- </li>
- <li>
- <p>
- Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you.
- Solution: try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple
- test.
- </p>
- </li>
- </ul>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="ERROR503">5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error
- (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking.
- ZoneAlarm has been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not
- running! The solution is to either fight the ZA configuration, or
- uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find something better behaved in its
- place. Other personal firewall type products may cause similar type
- problems if not configured correctly.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="AEN1114">5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad
- is still getting through. How?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will
- probably be held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will
- be displayed without the need for any request to the server, and
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will not be involved.
- Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.
- </p>
- <p>
- If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
- applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> and see if it
- really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking spam: a
- lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And
- remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may
- be entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted
- on different servers than the main site itself. If you right-click
- on the ad, you should be able to get all the relevant information
- you need. Alternately, you can find the correct URL by looking at
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logs (you may need to
- enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).
- </p>
- <p>
- Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates
- with one requested URL: <tt class="LITERAL">www.example.com</tt>
- (name of site was changed for this example, the number of requests
- is real). You can see in this the complexity of what goes into
- making up this one <span class="QUOTE">"page"</span>. There are
- eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate
- URLs requested in all, making up all manner of images, Shockwave
- Flash, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related
- content. Some of this content is obviously <span class=
- "QUOTE">"good"</span> or <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span>, but not
- all. Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to
- outside domains that seem to be identifying themselves with
- suspicious looking names, making our job a little easier. <span
- class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has <span class=
- "QUOTE">"crunched"</span> (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few
- items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
- </p>
- <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
- <tr>
- <td>
-<pre class="SCREEN">
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="ERROR503" id="ERROR503">5.2. Why am I
+ getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking.
+ ZoneAlarm has been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not
+ running! The solution is to either fight the ZA configuration, or
+ uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find something better behaved in its
+ place. Other personal firewall type products may cause similar type
+ problems if not configured correctly.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="AEN1123" id="AEN1123">5.3. I just added a
+ new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through. How?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will
+ probably be held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be
+ displayed without the need for any request to the server, and
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will not be involved. Flush
+ the browser's caches, and then try again.</p>
+
+ <p>If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
+ applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <a href=
+ "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
+ "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> and see if it really
+ matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking spam: a lot of
+ tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And remember you need
+ to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be entirely different
+ from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different servers than
+ the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should be able
+ to get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can find
+ the correct URL by looking at <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> logs (you may need to enable logging in
+ the main config file if its disabled).</p>
+
+ <p>Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates
+ with one requested URL: <tt class="LITERAL">www.example.com</tt> (name
+ of site was changed for this example, the number of requests is real).
+ You can see in this the complexity of what goes into making up this one
+ <span class="QUOTE">"page"</span>. There are eight different domains
+ involved here, with thirty two separate URLs requested in all, making
+ up all manner of images, Shockwave Flash, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets,
+ scripts, and other related content. Some of this content is obviously
+ <span class="QUOTE">"good"</span> or <span class="QUOTE">"bad"</span>,
+ but not all. Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going
+ to outside domains that seem to be identifying themselves with
+ suspicious looking names, making our job a little easier. <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has <span class="QUOTE">"crunched"</span>
+ (meaning caught and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but
+ perhaps missed a few as well.</p>
+
+ <table class="c2" border="0" width="100%">
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN">
Request: www.example.com/
Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
Request: img.example.com/main.css
Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
</pre>
- </td>
- </tr>
- </table>
-
- <p>
- Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and
- seemed to behave perfectly <span class="QUOTE">"normal"</span>
- (minus some ads, of course).
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="BADSITE">5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with
- Privoxy. What can I do?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- First verify that it is indeed a <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> problem, by toggling off <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> through <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</a> (the toggle feature may
- need to be enabled in the main <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt>),
- and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the
- shift key while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your
- browser's disk and memory caches).
- </p>
- <p>
- If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related
- problem. Now go to <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> and paste the
- full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions
- are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions
- files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at
- your logs for this site too, to see what else might be happening
- (note: logging may need to be enabled in the main config file).
- Many sites are complex and require a number of related pages to
- help present their content. Look at what else might be used by the
- page in question, and what of that might be <span class=
- "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">required</i></span>. Now, armed with
- this information, go to <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> and select the
- appropriate actions files for editing.
- </p>
- <p>
- You can now either look for a section which disables the actions
- that you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your
- site there, or make up a completely new section for your site. In
- any case, the recommended way is to disable only the prime suspect,
- reload the problem page, and only if the problem persists, disable
- more and more actions until you have identified the culprit. You
- may or may not want to turn the other actions on again. Remember to
- flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
- </p>
- <p>
- Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can
- accomplish the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file.
- Probably the easiest way to deal with such problems when editing by
- hand is to add your site to a <tt class="LITERAL">{ fragile }</tt>
- section in <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, which is an alias
- that turns off most <span class="QUOTE">"dangerous"</span> actions,
- but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus
- lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,
- </p>
- <p>
- Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <a href=
- "../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT" target="_top">User
- Manual appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</a>.
- There is also an <a href=
- "../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES" target=
- "_top">actions tutorial</a> with general configuration information
- and examples.
- </p>
- <p>
- As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting
- that will bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern
- browsers can do this.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DUN">5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every
- time I start IE. What gives?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This is a quirk that effects the installation of <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, in conjunction with Internet Explorer
- and Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The
- symptoms may appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or
- passwords.
- </p>
- <p>
- When setting up an NT based Windows system with <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> you may find that things do not seem
- to be doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will
- probably have set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up
- Networking (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You
- will probably have made this DUN connection available to other
- accounts that you may have set-up on your system. E.g. Mum or Dad
- sets up the system and makes accounts suitably configured for the
- kids.
- </p>
- <p>
- When setting up <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> in this
- environment you will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet
- Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you wish to
- use <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. When you do this the
- ICS DUN set-up becomes user specific. In this instance you will see
- no difference if you change the DUN connection under the account
- used to set-up the connection. However when you do this from
- another user you will notice that the DUN connection changes to
- make available to "Me only". You will also find that you have to
- store the password under each different user!
- </p>
- <p>
- The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user
- specific. Each set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE
- store the settings for each user individually. As such this
- enforces individual configurations rather than common ones. Hence
- the first time you use a DUN connection after re-booting your
- system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for the
- password. Just set and save the password again and all should be
- OK.
- </p>
- <p>
- [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="FTP">5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is
- blocking me.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot act as a proxy for
- FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser to use <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> as an FTP proxy. The same is true for
- <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">any protocol other than
- HTTP or HTTPS (SSL)</i></span>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a
- site, with a URL like <tt class=
- "LITERAL">ftp://ftp.example.com</tt>, your browser is making an FTP
- connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
- speak FTP, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does not, and
- cannot proxy such traffic.
- </p>
- <p>
- To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <span class=
- "QUOTE">"proxy"</span> setting, which will enable various
- protocols, including <span class="emphasis"><i class=
- "EMPHASIS">both</i></span> HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible
- to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course,
- if this happens, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will
- indeed cause problems since it does not know FTP. Newer version
- will give a sane error message if a FTP connection is attempted.
- Just disable the FTP setting and all will be well again.
- </p>
- <p>
- Will <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ever proxy FTP
- traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason, and the work to
- make this happen is more than it may seem.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXIE">5.7. In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft
- Internet Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects
- system-wide network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy,
- open System Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the
- settings pane that comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the
- "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox is checked and enter <tt class=
- "LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> in the entry field. Enter <tt class=
- "LITERAL">8118</tt> in the Port field. The next time you start IE,
- it should reflect these values.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXUNINSTALL">5.8. In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy
- folder to the trash in order to uninstall it. Now the finder tells
- me I don't have sufficient privileges to empty the trash.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.
- </p>
- <p>
- Just dragging the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> folder
- to the trash is not enough to delete it. <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supplies an <span class=
- "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file that takes care of
- these details. Open the trash, drag the <span class=
- "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file out of the trash and
- double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the
- administration password.
- </p>
- <p>
- The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the
- trash from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="MACOSXIMAGES">5.9. In Mac OS X Panther (10.3), images
- often fail to load and/or I experience random delays in page
- loading. I'm using <tt class="LITERAL">localhost</tt> as my
- browser's proxy setting.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but
- don't fully understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the
- proxy setting to <tt class="LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> instead of <tt
- class="LITERAL">localhost</tt> works around the problem.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="BLANKPAGE">5.10. I get a completely blank page at one
- site. <span class="QUOTE">"View Source"</span> shows only: <span
- class=
- "MARKUP"><html><body></body></html></span>.
- Without Privoxy the page loads fine.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in <a href=
- "http://www.php.net/" target="_top"><span class=
- "APPLICATION">PHP</span></a>, which results in empty pages being
- sent if the client explicitly requests an uncompressed page, like
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does. This bug has been
- fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
- </p>
- <p>
- To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try
- adding the site to a <tt class="LITERAL">-prevent-compression</tt>
- section in <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>:
- </p>
- <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
- <tr>
- <td>
-<pre class="SCREEN">
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </table>
+
+ <p>Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and
+ seemed to behave perfectly <span class="QUOTE">"normal"</span> (minus
+ some ads, of course).</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="BADSITE" id="BADSITE">5.4. One of my
+ favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>First verify that it is indeed a <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> problem, by toggling off <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> through <a href=
+ "http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target=
+ "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</a> (the toggle feature may
+ need to be enabled in the main <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt>), and
+ then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
+ while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and
+ memory caches).</p>
+
+ <p>If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related
+ problem. Now go to <a href="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info"
+ target="_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</a> and paste the
+ full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are
+ being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are
+ responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs for
+ this site too, to see what else might be happening (note: logging may
+ need to be enabled in the main config file). Many sites are complex and
+ require a number of related pages to help present their content. Look
+ at what else might be used by the page in question, and what of that
+ might be <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c3">required</span>. Now, armed
+ with this information, go to <a href=
+ "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target=
+ "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> and select the
+ appropriate actions files for editing.</p>
+
+ <p>You can now either look for a section which disables the actions
+ that you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site
+ there, or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case,
+ the recommended way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the
+ problem page, and only if the problem persists, disable more and more
+ actions until you have identified the culprit. You may or may not want
+ to turn the other actions on again. Remember to flush your browser's
+ caches in between any such changes!</p>
+
+ <p>Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can
+ accomplish the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file.
+ Probably the easiest way to deal with such problems when editing by
+ hand is to add your site to a <tt class="LITERAL">{ fragile }</tt>
+ section in <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, which is an alias
+ that turns off most <span class="QUOTE">"dangerous"</span> actions, but
+ is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
+ your privacy and protection more than necessary,</p>
+
+ <p>Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <a href=
+ "../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT" target="_top">User Manual
+ appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</a>. There is also
+ an <a href="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES" target=
+ "_top">actions tutorial</a> with general configuration information and
+ examples.</p>
+
+ <p>As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting
+ that will bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers
+ can do this.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DUN" id="DUN">5.5. After installing Privoxy,
+ I have to log in every time I start IE. What gives?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>This is a quirk that effects the installation of <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, in conjunction with Internet Explorer and
+ Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The
+ symptoms may appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or
+ passwords.</p>
+
+ <p>When setting up an NT based Windows system with <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> you may find that things do not seem to be
+ doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably
+ have set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking
+ (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You will probably
+ have made this DUN connection available to other accounts that you may
+ have set-up on your system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and
+ makes accounts suitably configured for the kids.</p>
+
+ <p>When setting up <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> in this
+ environment you will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet
+ Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you wish to use
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. When you do this the ICS DUN
+ set-up becomes user specific. In this instance you will see no
+ difference if you change the DUN connection under the account used to
+ set-up the connection. However when you do this from another user you
+ will notice that the DUN connection changes to make available to "Me
+ only". You will also find that you have to store the password under
+ each different user!</p>
+
+ <p>The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user
+ specific. Each set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE
+ store the settings for each user individually. As such this enforces
+ individual configurations rather than common ones. Hence the first time
+ you use a DUN connection after re-booting your system it may not
+ perform as you expect, and prompt you for the password. Just set and
+ save the password again and all should be OK.</p>
+
+ <p>[Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="FTP" id="FTP">5.6. I cannot connect to any
+ FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.</a></h3>
+
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot act as a proxy for
+ FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser to use <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> as an FTP proxy. The same is true for
+ <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c3">any protocol other than HTTP or
+ HTTPS (SSL)</span>.</p>
+
+ <p>Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a
+ site, with a URL like <tt class="LITERAL">ftp://ftp.example.com</tt>,
+ your browser is making an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So
+ while your browser may speak FTP, <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does not, and cannot proxy such
+ traffic.</p>
+
+ <p>To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"proxy"</span> setting, which will enable various protocols,
+ including <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c3">both</span> HTTP and FTP
+ proxying! So it is possible to accidentally enable FTP proxying in
+ these cases. And of course, if this happens, <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will indeed cause problems since it does
+ not know FTP. Newer version will give a sane error message if a FTP
+ connection is attempted. Just disable the FTP setting and all will be
+ well again.</p>
+
+ <p>Will <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ever proxy FTP
+ traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason, and the work to make
+ this happen is more than it may seem.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXIE" id="MACOSXIE">5.7. In Mac OS X, I
+ can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Privoxy as the HTTP
+ proxy.</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects
+ system-wide network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open
+ System Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane
+ that comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)"
+ checkbox is checked and enter <tt class="LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> in the
+ entry field. Enter <tt class="LITERAL">8118</tt> in the Port field. The
+ next time you start IE, it should reflect these values.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXUNINSTALL" id="MACOSXUNINSTALL">5.8.
+ In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
+ uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient
+ privileges to empty the trash.</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.</p>
+
+ <p>Just dragging the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> folder to
+ the trash is not enough to delete it. <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supplies an <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file that takes care of these
+ details. Open the trash, drag the <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">uninstall.command</span> file out of the trash and
+ double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the
+ administration password.</p>
+
+ <p>The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the
+ trash from the desktop should make it appear empty again.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="MACOSXIMAGES" id="MACOSXIMAGES">5.9. In Mac
+ OS X Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I experience
+ random delays in page loading. I'm using <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">localhost</tt> as my browser's proxy setting.</a></h3>
+
+ <p>We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but don't
+ fully understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting
+ to <tt class="LITERAL">127.0.0.1</tt> instead of <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">localhost</tt> works around the problem.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="BLANKPAGE" id="BLANKPAGE">5.10. I get a
+ completely blank page at one site. <span class="QUOTE">"View
+ Source"</span> shows only: <span class=
+ "MARKUP"><html><body></body></html></span>.
+ Without Privoxy the page loads fine.</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in <a href=
+ "http://www.php.net/" target="_top"><span class=
+ "APPLICATION">PHP</span></a>, which results in empty pages being sent
+ if the client explicitly requests an uncompressed page, like
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> does. This bug has been fixed
+ in PHP 4.2.3.</p>
+
+ <p>To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try adding
+ the site to a <tt class="LITERAL">-prevent-compression</tt> section in
+ <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>:</p>
+
+ <table class="c2" border="0" width="100%">
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN">
# Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
#
{-prevent-compression}
.example.com
</pre>
- </td>
- </tr>
- </table>
- <p>
- If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
- site's webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression
- instead of ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround) or
- upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="NOHOSTNAME">5.11. My logs show many <span class=
- "QUOTE">"Unable to get my own hostname"</span> lines. Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> tries to get the hostname
- of the system its running on from the IP address of the system
- interface it is bound to (from the <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt>
- file <span class="emphasis"><i class=
- "EMPHASIS">listen-address</i></span> setting). If the system cannot
- supply this information, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- logs this condition.
- </p>
- <p>
- Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration
- error. It is not a fatal error to <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> however, but may result in a much
- slower response from <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on
- some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
- </p>
- <p>
- This can be caused by a problem with the local <tt class=
- "FILENAME">hosts</tt> file. If this file has been changed from the
- original, try reverting it to see if that helps. Make sure whatever
- name(s) are used for the local system, that they resolve both ways.
- </p>
- <p>
- You should also be able to work around the problem with the <a
- href="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME" target="_top">hostname
- option</a>.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="INUSE">5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error
- message <span class="QUOTE">"port 8118 is already in use"</span>
- (or similar wording). Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Port 8118 is <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default TCP
- <span class="QUOTE">"listening"</span> port. Typically this message
- would mean that there is already one instance of <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> running, and your system is actually
- trying to start a second <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- on the same port, which will not work. (You can have multiple
- instances but they must be assigned different ports.) How and why
- this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need to
- check your installation and start-up procedures.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DEMORONIZER">5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This is caused by the <span class="QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span>
- filter. You should either upgrade <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or at least upgrade to the most
- recent <tt class="FILENAME">default.action</tt> file available from
- <a href=
- "http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118"
- target="_top">SourceForge</a>. Or you can simply disable the
- demoronizer filter.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DEMORONIZER2">5.14. Why are binary files (such as images)
- corrupted when Privoxy is used?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This may also be caused by the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> filter, in conjunction with a web
- server that is misreporting the content type. Binary files are
- exempted from <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> filtering
- (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else).
- Either upgrade <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or go to
- the most recent <tt class="FILENAME">default.action</tt> file
- available from <a href=
- "http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118"
- target="_top">SourceForge</a>.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DEMORONIZER3">5.15. What is the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> and why is it there?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML
- pages which were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has
- used proprietary extensions to standardized font encodings (ISO
- 8859-1), which has caused problems for pages that are viewed with
- non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a standard set of
- fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
- displayed correctly. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- borrowed from this script, introducing a filter based on the
- original demoronizer, which in turn could correct these errors on
- the fly.
- </p>
- <p>
- But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious
- problems in some other situations.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you
- need to view pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or
- Chinese), then it will cause corruption of the fonts, and thus
- <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">should not be
- on</i></span>.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you
- occasionally notice weird characters on pages, you might want to
- try it.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="WINDOWOPEN">5.16. Why do I keep seeing <span class=
- "QUOTE">"PrivoxyWindowOpen()"</span> in raw source code?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is attempting to disable
- malicious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" target=
- "_top">Javascript</a> in this case, with the <tt class=
- "LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filter. <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot tell very well <span class=
- "QUOTE">"good"</span> code snippets from <span class=
- "QUOTE">"bad"</span> code snippets.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without
- problems, then this is good, and likely some pop-up window was
- disabled. If you see this where it is causing a problem, such as a
- downloaded program source code file, then you should set an
- exception for this site or page such that the integrity of the page
- stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="DNSERRORS">5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like
- <span class="QUOTE">"404 No Such Domain"</span>. Why can't Privoxy
- do this better?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS
- resolution is done by the underlying operating system -- not <span
- class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> itself. <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> merely initiates the process and hands
- it off, and then later reports whatever the outcome was and tries
- to give a coherent message if there seems to be a problem. In some
- cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the browser itself
- which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g
- adding <span class="QUOTE">"www."</span> to the URL).
- </p>
- <p>
- In other cases, if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
- being chained with another proxy, this could complicate the issue,
- and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a <span class=
- "QUOTE">"socks4a"</span> proxy, the socks server handles all the
- DNS. <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> would just be the
- <span class="QUOTE">"messenger"</span> which is reporting whatever
- problem occurred downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
- </p>
- <p>
- In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements
- to help <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> better handle
- these cases.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="ALLCPU">5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts
- taking all CPU. Why is this?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This is probably a manifestation of the <span class="QUOTE">"100%
- cpu"</span> problem that occurs on pages containing many (thousands
- upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are in the raw HTML
- source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
- pattern matching in <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> page
- filtering mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long
- strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long
- time to complete.
- </p>
- <p>
- Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these
- pages, particularly the <tt class="LITERAL">js-annoyances</tt> and
- <tt class="LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filters. If you run
- into this problem with a recent <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please send a problem report.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="SLOWCRAWL">5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my
- browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users
- world-wide, it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent
- interaction of software components such as anti-virus software,
- spyware protectors, personal firewalls or similar components. Try
- disabling (or uninstalling) these one at a time and see if that
- helps. Either way, if you are using a recent <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version, please report the problem.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="PREVENTCOMP">5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites
- but not on others?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web
- servers to send their content <span class=
- "QUOTE">"compressed"</span> in order to speed things up, and then
- let the browser <span class="QUOTE">"uncompress"</span> them. When
- compiled with zlib support <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
- can decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to
- enable <a href=
- "../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION" target=
- "_top">prevent-compression</a>.
- </p>
- <p>
- As of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.9, zlib support
- is enabled in the default builds.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="SSL-WARNINGS">5.21. On some HTTPS sites my browser warns
- me about unauthenticated content, the URL bar doesn't get
- highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be broken. What's going
- on?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and <span
- class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is blocking the requests.
- Privoxy's error messages are delivered unencrypted and while it's
- obvious for the browser that the HTTPS request is already blocked
- by the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated content anyway.
- </p>
- <p>
- To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an
- invalid local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects
- aren't encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply
- follow the redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error
- message instead of the ad.
- </p>
- <p>
- To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked
- by <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and add the hosts (no
- path patterns) to a section like this:
- </p>
- <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
- <tr>
- <td>
-<pre class="SCREEN">
-{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
-.ivwbox.de:443/
-</pre>
- </td>
- </tr>
- </table>
-
- <p>
- Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact <span
- class="QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> directly (instead of through
- <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>).
- </p>
- <p>
- To add a proxy exception in <span class="APPLICATION">Mozilla
- Firefox</span> open the <span class="QUOTE">"Preferences"</span>,
- click the <span class="QUOTE">"Settings"</span> button located on
- the <span class="QUOTE">"Network"</span> tab in the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"Advanced"</span> section, and add <span class=
- "QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> in the <span class="QUOTE">"No Proxy
- for:"</span> field.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="SE-LINUX">5.22. I get selinux error messages. How can I
- fix this?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.
- </p>
- <p>
- The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar
- with the application they are trying to <span class=
- "QUOTE">"secure"</span> and thus create policies that make no
- sense.
- </p>
- <p>
- In <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> case the problem
- usually is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for
- certain destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover
- the standard ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well.
- This isn't a security problem and therefore <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default configuration doesn't block
- these requests.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able to load
- websites that don't use standard ports), you should configure
- Privoxy to block these ports as well, so it doesn't trigger the
- selinux warnings.
- </p>
- </div>
- <div class="SECT2">
- <h3 class="SECT2">
- <a name="GENTOO-RICERS">5.23. I compiled <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with Gentoo's portage and it appears
- to be very slow. Why?</a>
- </h3>
- <p>
- Probably you unintentionally compiled <span class=
- "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without threading support in which
- case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at
- the same time.
- </p>
- <p>
- Check your <span class="QUOTE">"USE"</span> flags and make sure
- they include <span class="QUOTE">"threads"</span>. If they don't,
- add the flag and rebuild <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with
- threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the <span class=
- "QUOTE">"Conditional #defines"</span> section on <a href=
- "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target=
- "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> will list <span
- class="QUOTE">"FEATURE_PTHREAD"</span> as <span class=
- "QUOTE">"enabled"</span>.
- </p>
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="NAVFOOTER">
- <hr width="100%" class="c1">
- <table summary="Footer navigation table" width="100%" border="0"
- cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
- <tr>
- <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">
- <a href="misc.html" accesskey="P">Prev</a>
- </td>
- <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top">
- <a href="index.html" accesskey="H">Home</a>
- </td>
- <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">
- <a href="contact.html" accesskey="N">Next</a>
</td>
</tr>
+ </table>
+
+ <p>If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the site's
+ webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression instead of
+ ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround) or upgrade to PHP
+ 4.2.3 or later (fix).</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="NOHOSTNAME" id="NOHOSTNAME">5.11. My logs
+ show many <span class="QUOTE">"Unable to get my own hostname"</span>
+ lines. Why?</a></h3>
+
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> tries to get the hostname
+ of the system its running on from the IP address of the system
+ interface it is bound to (from the <tt class="FILENAME">config</tt>
+ file <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c3">listen-address</span> setting).
+ If the system cannot supply this information, <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> logs this condition.</p>
+
+ <p>Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration
+ error. It is not a fatal error to <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> however, but may result in a much slower
+ response from <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on some
+ platforms due to DNS timeouts.</p>
+
+ <p>This can be caused by a problem with the local <tt class=
+ "FILENAME">hosts</tt> file. If this file has been changed from the
+ original, try reverting it to see if that helps. Make sure whatever
+ name(s) are used for the local system, that they resolve both ways.</p>
+
+ <p>You should also be able to work around the problem with the <a href=
+ "../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME" target="_top">hostname
+ option</a>.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="INUSE" id="INUSE">5.12. When I try to launch
+ Privoxy, I get an error message <span class="QUOTE">"port 8118 is
+ already in use"</span> (or similar wording). Why?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Port 8118 is <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default TCP
+ <span class="QUOTE">"listening"</span> port. Typically this message
+ would mean that there is already one instance of <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> running, and your system is actually
+ trying to start a second <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on
+ the same port, which will not work. (You can have multiple instances
+ but they must be assigned different ports.) How and why this might
+ happen varies from platform to platform, but you need to check your
+ installation and start-up procedures.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER" id="DEMORONIZER">5.13. Pages
+ with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.</a></h3>
+
+ <p>This is caused by the <span class="QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span>
+ filter. You should either upgrade <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or at least upgrade to the most recent
+ <tt class="FILENAME">default.action</tt> file available from <a href=
+ "http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118" target=
+ "_top">SourceForge</a>. Or you can simply disable the demoronizer
+ filter.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER2" id="DEMORONIZER2">5.14. Why
+ are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy is
+ used?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>This may also be caused by the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> filter, in conjunction with a web server
+ that is misreporting the content type. Binary files are exempted from
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> filtering (unless the web
+ server by mistake says the file is something else). Either upgrade
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, or go to the most recent
+ <tt class="FILENAME">default.action</tt> file available from <a href=
+ "http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118" target=
+ "_top">SourceForge</a>.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DEMORONIZER3" id="DEMORONIZER3">5.15. What
+ is the <span class="QUOTE">"demoronizer"</span> and why is it
+ there?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML
+ pages which were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used
+ proprietary extensions to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1),
+ which has caused problems for pages that are viewed with non-Microsoft
+ products (and are expecting to see a standard set of fonts). The
+ demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages displayed correctly.
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> borrowed from this script,
+ introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn
+ could correct these errors on the fly.</p>
+
+ <p>But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious
+ problems in some other situations.</p>
+
+ <p>If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need
+ to view pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then
+ it will cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <span class=
+ "emphasis EMPHASIS c3">should not be on</span>.</p>
+
+ <p>On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you
+ occasionally notice weird characters on pages, you might want to try
+ it.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="WINDOWOPEN" id="WINDOWOPEN">5.16. Why do I
+ keep seeing <span class="QUOTE">"PrivoxyWindowOpen()"</span> in raw
+ source code?</a></h3>
+
+ <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is attempting to disable
+ malicious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" target=
+ "_top">Javascript</a> in this case, with the <tt class=
+ "LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filter. <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> cannot tell very well <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"good"</span> code snippets from <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"bad"</span> code snippets.</p>
+
+ <p>If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without
+ problems, then this is good, and likely some pop-up window was
+ disabled. If you see this where it is causing a problem, such as a
+ downloaded program source code file, then you should set an exception
+ for this site or page such that the integrity of the page stays in tact
+ by disabling all filtering.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="DNSERRORS" id="DNSERRORS">5.17. I am getting
+ too many DNS errors like <span class="QUOTE">"404 No Such
+ Domain"</span>. Why can't Privoxy do this better?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS
+ resolution is done by the underlying operating system -- not
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> itself. <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> merely initiates the process and hands it
+ off, and then later reports whatever the outcome was and tries to give
+ a coherent message if there seems to be a problem. In some cases, this
+ might otherwise be mitigated by the browser itself which might try some
+ work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g adding <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"www."</span> to the URL).</p>
+
+ <p>In other cases, if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is being
+ chained with another proxy, this could complicate the issue, and cause
+ undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"socks4a"</span> proxy, the socks server handles all the DNS.
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> would just be the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"messenger"</span> which is reporting whatever problem occurred
+ downstream, and not the root cause of the error.</p>
+
+ <p>In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements
+ to help <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> better handle these
+ cases.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="ALLCPU" id="ALLCPU">5.18. At one site
+ Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU. Why is this?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>This is probably a manifestation of the <span class="QUOTE">"100%
+ cpu"</span> problem that occurs on pages containing many (thousands
+ upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are in the raw HTML
+ source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the pattern
+ matching in <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> page filtering
+ mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this
+ becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long time to complete.</p>
+
+ <p>Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these
+ pages, particularly the <tt class="LITERAL">js-annoyances</tt> and
+ <tt class="LITERAL">unsolicited-popups</tt> filters. If you run into
+ this problem with a recent <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
+ version, please send a problem report.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SLOWCRAWL" id="SLOWCRAWL">5.19. I just
+ installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has slowed to a crawl. What
+ gives?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users
+ world-wide, it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent
+ interaction of software components such as anti-virus software, spyware
+ protectors, personal firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or
+ uninstalling) these one at a time and see if that helps. Either way, if
+ you are using a recent <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
+ version, please report the problem.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="PREVENTCOMP" id="PREVENTCOMP">5.20. Why do
+ my filters work on some sites but not on others?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web
+ servers to send their content <span class="QUOTE">"compressed"</span>
+ in order to speed things up, and then let the browser <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"uncompress"</span> them. When compiled with zlib support
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can decompress content before
+ filtering, otherwise you may want to enable <a href=
+ "../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION" target=
+ "_top">prevent-compression</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>As of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.9, zlib support
+ is enabled in the default builds.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SSL-WARNINGS" id="SSL-WARNINGS">5.21. On
+ some HTTPS sites my browser warns me about unauthenticated content, the
+ URL bar doesn't get highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be
+ broken. What's going on?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is blocking the requests.
+ Privoxy's error messages are delivered unencrypted and while it's
+ obvious for the browser that the HTTPS request is already blocked by
+ the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated content anyway.</p>
+
+ <p>To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an
+ invalid local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects
+ aren't encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply follow
+ the redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error message
+ instead of the ad.</p>
+
+ <p>To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked
+ by <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and add the hosts (no path
+ patterns) to a section like this:</p>
+
+ <table class="c2" border="0" width="100%">
<tr>
- <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">
- Miscellaneous
- </td>
- <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top">
-
- </td>
- <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">
- Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+ <td>
+ <pre class="SCREEN">
+{+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
+.ivwbox.de:443/
+</pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
+
+ <p>Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact
+ <span class="QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> directly (instead of through
+ <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>).</p>
+
+ <p>To add a proxy exception in <span class="APPLICATION">Mozilla
+ Firefox</span> open the <span class="QUOTE">"Preferences"</span>, click
+ the <span class="QUOTE">"Settings"</span> button located on the
+ <span class="QUOTE">"Network"</span> tab in the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"Advanced"</span> section, and add <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"127.0.0.1:0"</span> in the <span class="QUOTE">"No Proxy
+ for:"</span> field.</p>
</div>
- </body>
-</html>
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="SE-LINUX" id="SE-LINUX">5.22. I get selinux
+ error messages. How can I fix this?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux
+ policies.</p>
+
+ <p>The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar with
+ the application they are trying to <span class="QUOTE">"secure"</span>
+ and thus create policies that make no sense.</p>
+
+ <p>In <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> case the problem
+ usually is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for certain
+ destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover the standard
+ ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well. This isn't a
+ security problem and therefore <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> default configuration doesn't block
+ these requests.</p>
+
+ <p>If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able to load
+ websites that don't use standard ports), you should configure Privoxy
+ to block these ports as well, so it doesn't trigger the selinux
+ warnings.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="SECT2">
+ <h3 class="SECT2"><a name="GENTOO-RICERS" id="GENTOO-RICERS">5.23. I
+ compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with Gentoo's portage
+ and it appears to be very slow. Why?</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Probably you unintentionally compiled <span class=
+ "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without threading support in which case
+ requests have to be serialized and only one can be served at the same
+ time.</p>
+
+ <p>Check your <span class="QUOTE">"USE"</span> flags and make sure they
+ include <span class="QUOTE">"threads"</span>. If they don't, add the
+ flag and rebuild <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.</p>
+
+ <p>If you compiled <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with
+ threading support (on POSIX-based systems), the <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"Conditional #defines"</span> section on <a href=
+ "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target=
+ "_top">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</a> will list <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"FEATURE_PTHREAD"</span> as <span class=
+ "QUOTE">"enabled"</span>.</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="NAVFOOTER">
+ <hr class="c1" width="100%">
+
+ <table summary="Footer navigation table" width="100%" border="0"
+ cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
+ <tr>
+ <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top"><a href="misc.html"
+ accesskey="P">Prev</a></td>
+
+ <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top"><a href="index.html"
+ accesskey="H">Home</a></td>
+
+ <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top"><a href="contact.html"
+ accesskey="N">Next</a></td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">Miscellaneous</td>
+
+ <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top"> </td>
+
+ <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">Contacting the developers,
+ Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</td>
+ </tr>
+ </table>
+ </div>
+</body>
+</html>
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