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--- a/doc/source/faq.sgml
+++ b/doc/source/faq.sgml
@@ -1,41 +1,63 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Privoxy">
]>
@@ -43,8 +65,33 @@
Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions
-$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.39 2002/04/03 03:53:03 hal9 Exp $
+
+
+
+
+ Copyright &my-copy; 2001-2018 by
+ Privoxy Developers
+
+
+
+
+
@@ -64,182 +111,211 @@
]]>
- This FAQ gives users and developers alike answers to frequently asked
- questions about Privoxy.
-
-
+ This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
+ Privoxy.
+ It is not a substitute for the
+ Privoxy User Manual.
- &p-intro;
+
+
+
+ What is Privoxy? &p-intro;
+
+ Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents
+ the state at the release of version &p-version;.
You can find the latest version of the document at http://www.privoxy.org/faq/.
- Please see the Contact section in the user-manual if
- you want to contact the developers.
+ url="https://www.privoxy.org/faq/">https://www.privoxy.org/faq/.
+ Please see the Contact section if you want to
+ contact the developers.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-General Information
+General Information
+Who should give &my-app; a try?
+
+ Anyone who is interested in security, privacy, or in
+ finer-grained control over their web and Internet experience.
+
+
+
+Is Privoxy the best choice for
+me?
+
+ &my-app; is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more
+ control and security. Those with the willingness to read the documentation
+ and the ability to fine-tune their installation will benefit the most.
+
+
+ One of Privoxy's
+ strengths is that it is highly configurable giving you the ability to
+ completely personalize your installation. Being familiar with, or at least
+ having an interest in learning about HTTP and other networking
+ protocols, HTML, and
+ Regular
+ Expressions
+ will be a big plus and will help you get the most out of &my-app;.
+ A new installation just includes a very basic configuration. The user
+ should take this as a starting point only, and enhance it as he or she
+ sees fit. In fact, the user is encouraged, and expected to, fine-tune the
+ configuration.
+
+
+ Much of Privoxy's configuration can be done
+ with a Web browser.
+ But there are areas where configuration is done using a
+ text editor
+ to edit configuration files. Also note that the web-based action editor
+ doesn't use authentication and should only be enabled in environments
+ where all clients with access to &my-app; listening port can be trusted.
+
+
-What is this new version of Privoxy?
+What is a proxy? How does
+Privoxy work?
- The original Internet
- Junkbuster (tm) is a copyrighted product of Junkbusters Corporation.
- Development of this effort stopped some time ago as of version 2.0.2. Stefan
- Waldherr started the ijbswa project on Sourceforge to
- rekindle development. Other developers subsequently joined with Stefan, and
- have since added many new features, refinements and enhancements. The result
- of this effort is Privoxy.
+ A web proxy
+ is a service, based on a software such as &my-app;, that clients
+ (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting to web servers directly.
+ The clients then ask the proxy to request objects (web pages, images, movies etc)
+ on their behalf and to forward the data to the clients.
+ It is a go-between. For details, see
+ Wikipedia's proxy definition.
- Privoxy has evolved from the
- Junkbuster 2.0.2 code base, and has advanced
- significantly at this point.
+ There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
+ efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies
+ to accommodate those needs.
-
- Please see the user-manual for more
- information on the history of Junkbuster and
- Privoxy.
+
+ &my-app; is a proxy that is primarily focused on
+ privacy enhancement, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from
+ restrictions placed on his activities. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
+ it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
+ browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
+ this, all of which are under your complete control via the various configuration
+ files and options. Being a proxy also makes it easier to share
+ configurations among multiple browsers and/or users.
+
+
+Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?
+
+ Yes, ad blocking is but one possible use. There are many, many ways &my-app;
+ can be used to sanitize and customize web browsing.
+
+What is this new version of
+Junkbuster?
-
-Why Privoxy? Why a name change at all?
+
+ &history;
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Why Privoxy? Why change the name from
+Junkbuster at all?
- Privoxy is the
- Privacy Enhancing Proxy.
+ Though outdated, Junkbusters Corporation continued to offer their original
+ version of the Internet Junkbuster for a while,
+ so publishing our Junkbuster-derived software
+ under the same name would have led to confusion.
- There are potential legal complications from the continued use of the
- Junkbuster name, which is a trademark of
- Junkbusters Corporation.
- (There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
- Privoxy project itself, and they, in fact, still
- share our ideals and goals.)
+ There were also potential legal reasons not to use the
+ Junkbuster name, as it was (and maybe still is)
+ a registered trademark of Junkbusters Corporation.
+ There were, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
+ Privoxy project itself, and they, in fact,
+ shared our ideals and goals.
-
- The developers also believed that there are so many changes from the original
- code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
- a name in their own right, especially now with the pending release of
- version 3.0.
+ The Privoxy developers also believed that there were so many improvements
+ over the original code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past
+ and make a name in their own right.
-
-
-
-How does Privoxy differ
-from the old Junkbuster?
- Privoxy picks up where
- Junkbuster left off. All the old features remain.
- The new Privoxy still blocks ads and banners,
- still manages cookies, and still helps protect your privacy. But, these are
- all enhanced, and many new features have been added, all in the same vein.
-
-
- The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
- users will notice right off the bat. The blocklist file does
- not exist any more. This is replaced by actions files, such
- as default.actions. This is where most of the per site
- configuration is now.
-
-
-
-What are some of the new features?
-
-&newfeatures;
-
+ Privoxy is the
+ Privacy Enhancing Proxy. Also, its content
+ modification and junk suppression gives you, the user, more
+ control, more freedom, and allows you to browse your personal and
+ private edition of the web.
+
-What is a proxy? How does
-Privoxy work?
-
- When you connect to a web site with Privoxy,
- you are really connecting to your locally running version of
- Privoxy. Privoxy
- intercepts your requests for the web page, and relays that to the
- real web site. The web site sends the HTTP data stream
- back to Privoxy, where
- Privoxy can work its magic before it
- relays this data back to your web browser.
-
-
-
- Since Privoxy sits between you and the
- WWW, it is in a position to intercept and completely manage all web traffic and
- HTTP content before it gets to your browser.
- Privoxy uses various programming methods to do
- this, all of which is under your control via the various configuration
- files and options.
+How does Privoxy differ
+from the old Junkbuster?
+
+ Privoxy picks up where
+ Junkbuster left off.
+ Privoxy still blocks ads and banners,
+ still manages cookies, and still
+ helps protect your privacy. But, most of these features have been enhanced,
+ and many new ones have been added, all in the same vein.
+
+ Privoxy's new features include:
+
-
- There are many kinds of proxies. Privoxy best
- fits the filtering proxy category.
-
+
+ &newfeatures;
+
-
-
-How does Privoxy know what is
-an ad, and what is not?
+
+How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
+
+ Privoxy's approach to blocking ads is twofold:
+
- Privoxy processes all the raw content of every
- web page. So it reads everything on each page. It then compares this to the
- rules as set up in the configuration files, and looks for any matches to
- these rules. Privoxy makes heavy use of
- regular expressions. (If you are not familiar with regular
- expressions, it is explained briefly in the user manual.) Regular
- expressions facilitate matching of one text string against another, using
- wildcards to build complex patterns. So Privoxy
- will typically look for URLs and other content that match certain key words
- and expressions as defined in the configuration files. For instance a URL
- that contains /banners, has a high probability of containing
- ad banners, and thus would be a prime candidate to have a matching rule.
+ First, there are certain patterns in the locations (URLs)
+ of banner images. This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many
+ web sites serve their banners from a directory called banners!)
+ and the host (blocking the big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net
+ already helps a lot). Privoxy takes advantage of this
+ fact by using URL
+ patterns to sort out and block the requests for things that sound
+ like they would be ads or banners.
- So Privoxy will look for these kinds of obvious
- looking culprits. And also, will use lists of known organizations that
- specialize in ads. Again, using complex patterns to match as many potential
- combinations as possible since there tend to be many, many variations used by
- advertisers, and new ones are being introduced all the time.
+ Second, banners tend to come in certain sizes. But you
+ can't tell the size of an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you
+ do, it's too late to save bandwidth. Therefore, Privoxy
+ also inspects the HTML sources of web pages while they are loaded, and replaces
+ references to images with standard banner sizes by dummy references, so that
+ your browser doesn't request them anymore in the first place.
+
+
+ Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
+ and readily configurable.
-
-Can Privoxy make mistakes?
+
+Can Privoxy make mistakes?
This does not sound very scientific.
- Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad rule
- accidentally block something by mistake. There is a good chance you may run
- into such a situation at some point. It is tricky writing rules to cover
- every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
+ Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
+ rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
+ run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
+ cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
@@ -252,71 +328,273 @@ This does not sound very scientific.
+
+Will I have to configure Privoxy
+ before I can use it?
+
+ That depends on your expectations.
+ The default installation should give you a good starting
+ point, and block most ads and unwanted content,
+ but many of the more advanced features are off by default, and require
+ you to activate them.
+
+
+ You do have to set up your browser to use
+ Privoxy (see the Installation section below).
+
+
+ And you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives,
+ or ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you
+ would certainly benefit by customizing Privoxy's
+ configuration to more closely match your individual situation. And we
+ encourage you to do this. This is where the real power of
+ Privoxy lies!
+
+
+
+
+
+Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?
+
+ Yes, &my-app; runs as a server already, and can easily be configured to
+ serve more than one client. See
+ How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN below.
+
+My browser does the same things as
-Privoxy. Why should I use
-Privoxy at all?
+Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at all?
Modern browsers do indeed have some of the same
functionality as Privoxy. Maybe this is
- adequate for you. But Privoxy is much more
- versatile and powerful, and can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
+ adequate for you. But Privoxy is very
+ versatile and powerful, and can probably do a number of things
+ your browser just can't.
- In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
- have a LAN with multiple computers. This way all the configuration
- is in one place, and you don't have to maintain a similar configuration
- for possibly many browsers.
-
+ In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
+ have a LAN with multiple computers since &my-app; can run as a server
+ application. This way all the configuration is in one place, and you don't
+ have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers or
+ users.
+
+
+ Note, however, that it's recommended to leverage both your browser's
+ and Privoxy's privacy enhancing features
+ at the same time. While your browser probably lacks some features
+ &my-app; offers, it should also be able to do some things more
+ reliably, for example restricting and suppressing JavaScript.
+Why should I trust Privoxy?
+
+ The most important reason is because you have access to
+ everything, and you can control everything. You can
+ check every line of every configuration file yourself. You can check every
+ last bit of source code should you desire. And even if you can't read code,
+ there should be some comfort in knowing that other people can,
+ and do read it. You can build the software from scratch, if you want,
+ so that you know the executable is clean, and that it is
+ yours. In fact, we encourage this level of scrutiny. It
+ is one reason we use &my-app; ourselves.
+
+
-
-Is there is a license or fee? What about a
+Is there is a license or fee? What about a
warranty? Registration?
- Privoxy is licensed under the
- GNU General Public License (GPL). It is free to use, copy,
- modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this license.
- Please see the
-user-manual for
- more information on the license and copyright.
-
-
+ Privoxy is free software and licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
+ It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this
+ license. Please see the Copyright section for more
+ information on the license and copyright. Or the LICENSE file
+ that should be included.
+
- There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise. That is
- something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
- Privoxy really is free
- in every respect!
-
+ There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
+ That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
-I would like to help you, what do I do?
+
+Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?
+
+ No, at least not reliably enough to trust it. &my-app; is not designed to be
+ a malware removal tool and the default configuration doesn't even try to
+ filter out any malware.
+
+
+ &my-app; could help prevent contact from (known) sites that use such
+ tactics with appropriate configuration rules, and thus could conceivably
+ prevent contamination from such sites. However, keeping such a configuration
+ up to date would require a lot of time and effort that would be better spend
+ on keeping your software itself up to date so it doesn't have known
+ vulnerabilities.
+
+
+
+
+
+Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?
+
+ &my-app; should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
+
+
+ But it is probably not necessary to use &my-app; in conjunction with other
+ ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results.
+ It might be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to
+ tweak its configuration to your liking.
+
+
+ Note that this is an advice specific to ad blocking.
+
+
+
+I would like to help you, what can I do?
-Money Money Money
+Would you like to participate?
+
+ Well, we always need help. There is something for
+ everybody who wants to help us. We welcome new developers, packagers,
+ testers, documentation writers or really anyone with a desire to help in
+ any way. You DO NOT need to be a
+ programmer. There are many other tasks available. In fact,
+ the programmers often can't spend as much time programming because of some
+ of the other, more mundane things that need to be done, like checking the
+ Tracker feedback sections or responding to user questions on the mailing
+ lists.
+
+
+ So first thing, subscribe to the Privoxy Users
+ or the Privoxy
+ Developers mailing list, join the discussion, help out other users, provide general
+ feedback or report problems you noticed.
+
+
+ If you intend to help out with the trackers, you also might want to get an account on SourceForge.net
+ so we don't confuse you with the other name-less users.
+
+
+ We also have a Developer's Manual.
+ While it is partly out of date, it's still worth reading.
+
- We, of course, welcome donations and use the money for domain registering,
- regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). Anyway, we'll soon describe the
- process how to donate money to the team.
+ Our TODO list
+ may be of interest to you as well.
+ Please let us know if you want to work on one of the items listed.
-You want to work with us?
+Would you like to donate?
+
+ Donations are welcome. Our
+ TODO list
+ is rather long and being able to pay one (or more) developers to work on Privoxy
+ would make a huge difference, even if it was only for a couple of weeks. Donations may
+ also be used for Privoxy-related travel expenses (for example to attend conferences),
+ for hardware used for Privoxy development and for hosting expenses etc.
+
+
+
+ Privoxy is an associated
+ project of Software
+ in the Public Interest (SPI), which allows us to receive
+ tax-deductible donations in the United States.
+ You can donate via Paypal
+ and Click & Pledge.
+ For details, please have a look at
+ SPI's general donation page.
+
+
+
+ You can also donate to Privoxy using a bank account or a "Paypal" address:
+
+
+ Name on account: Zwiebelfreunde e.V.
+ IBAN: DE95430609671126825604
+ BIC: GENODEM1GLS
+ Bank: GLS Bank
+
+
+ "Paypal" address: privoxy@zwiebelfreunde.de
+
+
+ Donations made through Zwiebelfreunde e.V. are tax-deductible in Germany
+ and other countries that recognize German charitable clubs. Feel free to
+ use the Subject field to provide a name to be credited and a list of TODO
+ list items you are interested in the most. For example: Max Mustermann: #16, #1, #14.
+
+
- Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers,
- RPM gurus or documentation makers. Simply get an account on sourceforge.net
- and mail your id to the developer mailing list. Then read the
- section Quickstart in the
- Developer's Manual.
+ Note that donations made through Zwiebelfreunde e.V. currently can't be checked
+ automatically so you may not get credited right away. The credits currently
+ reflect donations received before 2016-01-14.
+
- Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the CVS
- repository, and together we'll find a suitable task for you.
+ If you have any questions regarding donations please mail to either the
+ public user mailing list or, if it's a private matter, to
+ Fabian Keil (Privoxy's SPI liaison)
+ directly.
+
+How can I become a sponsor and get my logo or link on privoxy.org?
+
+ We are currently offering the following sponsor levels as an experiment:
+
+
+
+ Gold (10000 EUR/year)
+
+
+ Logo shown at the bottom of the
+ Privoxy homepage.
+ Logo, link and self description on the
+ sponsor page.
+
+
+
+
+ Silver (1000 EUR/year)
+
+
+ Logo shown randomly at the bottom of the
+ Privoxy homepage.
+ Logo, link and self description on the
+ sponsor page.
+
+
+
+
+ Bronze (500 EUR/year)
+
+
+ Logo and link on the sponsor page.
+
+
+
+
+
+ The logo sizes depend on the sponsor level. Logos are served from
+ our server, no requests are made to the sponsor website unless
+ the links are being used.
+
+
+ The details may change over time but changes will only affect new sponsors
+ (or existing sponsors that explicitly agreed to the changes).
+
+
+ If you want to become a sponsor, please contact
+ Fabian Keil.
+ New sponsors are only accepted if no developer objects.
+
@@ -325,15 +603,19 @@ warranty? Registration?
-Installation
+Installation
-Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
-
- Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
- should be virtually all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary
- since Privoxy runs as a separate application and
- just exchanges standard HTML data with your browser, just like a web server
+Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
+
+ Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
+ should be virtually all browsers, including
+ Firefox, Internet
+ Explorer, Opera, and
+ Safari among others.
+ Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since
+ Privoxy runs as a separate application and talks
+ to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
does.
@@ -346,92 +628,165 @@ Include supported.sgml here:
&supported;
-Can I install
- Privoxy over Junkbuster?
+
+Can I use Privoxy with my email client?
+
+ As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes,
+ any application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a
+ browser or not. Though this may not be the best approach for
+ dealing with some of the common abuses of HTML in email. See How can I configure Privoxy
+ with Outlook? below for more on
+ this.
+
+
+ Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
+ related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
+ recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
+ text for these reasons.
+
+
+
+
-
-I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
+
+I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
special I have to do now?
- All browsers must be told to use Privoxy
- as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
- in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. See below.
- Also, you should flush your browser's memory and disk cache to get rid of any
- cached items.
-
+ All browsers should be told to use Privoxy
+ as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
+ in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. It's possible
+ to combine &my-app; with a packet filter to intercept HTTP requests
+ even if the client isn't explicitly configured to use &my-app;,
+ but where possible, configuring the client is recommended. See
+ the User Manual for more
+ details. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk
+ cache to get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored
+ cookies.
-
-What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
+What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
If you set up the Privoxy to run on
the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
- networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on localhost
- (which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
- to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you have Privoxy to run on a different port with the
- listen-address config option).
+ networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on 127.0.0.1
+ (sometimes referred to as localhost,
+ which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
+ to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you used the listen-address
+ config option to tell Privoxy to run on
+ a different port).
When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
- the word localhost in the boxes next to HTTP
- and Secure (HTTPS) and then the number 8118
- for port. This tells your browser to send all web
- requests to Privoxy instead of directly to the
- Internet.
+ the word localhost or the IP address 127.0.0.1
+ in the boxes next to HTTP and Secure (HTTPS) and
+ then the number 8118 for port.
+ This tells your browser to send all web requests to Privoxy
+ instead of directly to the Internet.
- Privoxy can also be used to proxy for
- a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
- address of the LAN host where Privoxy
- is running, or the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be
- same as above.
+ Privoxy can also be used to proxy for
+ a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
+ address of the LAN host where Privoxy
+ is running, or the equivalent hostname, e.g. 192.168.1.1.
+ Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
+ Privoxy doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by
+ default.
Privoxy does not currently handle
- protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, or other Internet
- protocols.
+ any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, etc.
-
-I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening.
+
+I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening.
All the ads are there. What's wrong?
- Did you configure your browser to use Privoxy
+ Did you configure your browser to use Privoxy
as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
- the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
- that Privoxy is running, and your browser
- is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
- http://p.p/. This should give you
- a banner that says This is Privoxy and
- access to Privoxy's internal configuration.
- If you see this, then you are good to go. If not, the browser or
- Privoxy are not set up correctly.
+ the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
+ that Privoxy is running, and your browser
+ is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
+ http://p.p/.
+
+ This should take you to a page titled This is Privoxy.. with
+ access to Privoxy's internal configuration.
+ If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
+ Privoxy is not running, then the browser is not set up to use
+ your Privoxy installation.
+ If you receive anything else (probably nothing at all), it could either
+ be that the browser is not set up correctly, or that
+ Privoxy is not running at all. Check the log file. For instructions
+ on starting Privoxy and browser configuration,
+ see the chapter
+ on starting Privoxy in the
+ User Manual.
+
+
+
+
+
+I get a Privoxy is not being used dummy page although
+Privoxy is running and being used.
+
+
+ First, make sure that Privoxy is really running and
+ being used by visiting http://p.p/. You
+ should see the Privoxy main page. If not, see
+ the chapter
+ on starting Privoxy in the
+ User Manual.
+
+
+ Now if http://p.p/ works for you, but
+ other parts of Privoxy's web interface show
+ the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered before
+ Privoxy was being used. You need to clear your
+ browser's cache. Note that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since
+ that'll only refresh the dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
+
+ The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
+ example, Mozilla/Netscape users would click
+ Edit --> Preferences -->
+ Advanced --> Cache and
+ then click both Clear Memory Cache
+ and Clear Disk Cache.
+ In some Firefox versions it's
+ Tools --> Options -->
+ Privacy --> Cache and
+ then click Clear Cache Now.
+
+
@@ -439,607 +794,975 @@ All the ads are there. What's wrong?
-Configuration
-
-Can I use my old config files?
-
- There are major changes to Junkbuster/
- Privoxy configuration from version 2.0.x to
- 2.9.x and later. Most of the older files will not work at all. This is
- especially true of blocklist. If this is the case, you
- will need to re-enter your old data into the new configuration structure.
- This is probably also a good recommendation even if upgrading from 2.9.x to
- 3.x since there were many minor changes along the way.
-
-
-
-
-What is an actions file?
+Configuration
+
+What exactly is an actions file?
- actions files are where various actions that
- Privoxy might take, are configured.
- Typically, you would define a set of default actions that apply
- to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults.
-
-
-
- Actions can be defined on a per site basis, or for groups of sites. Actions
- can also be grouped together and then applied to one or more sites. There
- are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
- if we are blocking cookies as one of our default
- actions, but need to accept cookies from a given
- site, we would define this in our actions file.
-
+ &my-app; utilizes the concept of
+ actions
+ that are used to manipulate and control web page data.
+ Actions files
+ are where these actions
+ that Privoxy could take while processing a certain
+ request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions
+ that apply globally to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
+ There is a wide array of actions available that give the user a high degree
+ of control and flexibility on how to process each and every web page.
- Privoxy comes with several default
- actions files, with varying degrees
- of filtering and blocking, as starting points for your own
- configuration (see below).
+ Actions can be defined on a URL pattern basis, i.e.
+ for single URLs, whole web sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be
+ grouped together and then applied to requests matching one or more patterns.
+ There are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
+ if you are blocking cookies
+ as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given site,
+ you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your actions
+ files, preferably in user.action.
-The actions concept confuses me. Please list
+The actions concept confuses me. Please list
some of these actions.
- These are all explained in the
- user-manual.
- Please refer to that.
+ For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer
+ to the actions file
+ chapter in the User
+ Manual. It includes a list of all actions
+ and an actions
+ file tutorial to get you started.
-
-How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
-way to do this?
+
+How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
+way to do this?
- The easiest way to do this, is to access Privoxy
- with your web browser at http://p.p/,
- and then select
- "Edit the actions list"
- from the selection list. You can also do this by editing the appropriate
- file with a text editor.
+ Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited
+ with a text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access
+ Privoxy's user interface with your web browser
+ at http://config.privoxy.org/
+ (Shortcut: http://p.p/) and then select
+ View &
+ change the current configuration from the menu. Note
+ that this feature must be explicitly enabled in the main config file
+ (see enable-edit-actions).
+
+
+
+There are several different actions files. What are
+the differences?
- Please see the
- user-manual for a
- detailed explanation of these and other configuration files, and their
- various options and syntax.
+ Please have a look at the the actions chapter
+ in the User Manual for a detailed explanation.
-
+
-
-What are the differences between
-intermediate.action, basic.action, etc.?
+
+Why is the configuration so complicated?
+
+ Complicated is in the eye of the beholder.
+
+
+ Privoxy is currently mainly written by and for people who are already
+ familiar with the underlying concepts like regular expressions, HTTP and HTML,
+ or are willing to become familiar with them to be able to get the most
+ out of a powerful and flexible tool such as Privoxy.
+
-Configuring Privoxy is not easy. To help you get
-started, we provide you with three different default configurations. The
-following table shows you, which features are enabled in each configuration.
+ While everybody is expected to be able to get a Privoxy default installation
+ up and running, fine-tuning requires a certain amount of background
+ information and Privoxy's documentation mainly concentrates on the
+ Privoxy-specific parts while only providing references to the rest.
-
Default Configurations
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Feature
- default.action
- basic.action
- intermediate.action
- advanced.action
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- ad-filtering
- ?
- x
- x
- x
-
-
-
- blank image
- ?
- x
- x
- x
-
-
-
- de-animate GIFs
- ?
- x
- x
- x
-
-
-
- referer forging
- ?
- x
- x
- x
-
-
-
- jon's +no-cookies-keep (i.e. session cookies only)
- ?
- x
- x
- x
-
-
-
- no-popup windows
- ?
-
- x
- x
-
-
-
- fast redirects
- ?
-
- x
- x
-
-
-
- hide-referrer
- ?
-
- x
- x
-
-
-
- hide-useragent
- ?
-
- x
- x
-
-
-
- content-modification
- ?
-
-
- x
-
-
-
- feature-x
- ?
-
-
-
-
-
-
- feature-y
- ?
-
-
-
-
-
-
- feature-z
- ?
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-