X-Git-Url: http://www.privoxy.org/gitweb/?p=privoxy.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fsource%2Fuser-manual.sgml;h=0004da129d10799afd9c112ffb41cda605f04178;hp=67d39fbe6d7f9f5917db480116adaac52ec5bbbe;hb=d880f1bc9f9c75a7d33e16b5fba191af96769248;hpb=cd6695ddabcfa6c6319f3f9a0b28770767977ae1
diff --git a/doc/source/user-manual.sgml b/doc/source/user-manual.sgml
index 67d39fbe..0004da12 100644
--- a/doc/source/user-manual.sgml
+++ b/doc/source/user-manual.sgml
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
+
@@ -11,11 +11,12 @@
-
-
+
+
+
-
-
+
+
@@ -34,13 +35,13 @@
This file belongs into
ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
- $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.123 2010/02/19 16:00:38 fabiankeil Exp $
+ $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.164 2013/01/18 18:45:21 fabiankeil Exp $
- Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
+ Copyright (C) 2001-2013 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
See LICENSE.
========================================================================
- NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
+ NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
========================================================================
@@ -55,12 +56,12 @@
- Privoxy Developers
-$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.123 2010/02/19 16:00:38 fabiankeil Exp $
+$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.164 2013/01/18 18:45:21 fabiankeil Exp $
Features
- In addition to the core
- features of ad blocking and
+ In addition to the core
+ features of ad blocking and
cookie management,
Privoxy provides many supplemental
- features,
+ features,
that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
@@ -165,14 +166,14 @@ Hal.
- Note:
- On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
+ Note:
+ On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
found. (See below for your platform). In any case be sure to backup
your old configuration if it is valuable to you. See the
-
+
Binary Packages
How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
@@ -180,41 +181,11 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
-Red Hat and Fedora RPMs
-
-
- RPMs can be installed with rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm ,
- and will use /etc/privoxy for the location
- of configuration files.
-
-
-
- Note that on Red Hat, Privoxy will
- not be automatically started on system boot. You will
- need to enable that using chkconfig ,
- ntsysv , or similar methods.
-
-
-
- If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
- rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm . This
- will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
-
-
-
- Also note that if you have a Junkbuster RPM installed
- on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
- Otherwise, RPM will try to remove Junkbuster
- automatically if found, before installing Privoxy .
-
-Debian and Ubuntu
DEBs can be installed with apt-get install privoxy ,
- and will use /etc/privoxy for the location of
+ and will use /etc/privoxy for the location of
configuration files.
Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
the installation process. You will find the configuration files
- in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in.
+ in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in.
Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full Windows service
@@ -256,28 +227,18 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
command: services.msc . If you do not take the manual step
of modifying Privoxy's service settings, it will
not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
- actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
+ actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
write to its log and configuration files.
-
-Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX-->
-
-
- Create a new directory, cd to it, then unzip and
- untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
- things go.
-
-OS/2
First, make sure that no previous installations of
- Junkbuster and / or
+ Junkbuster and / or
Privoxy are left on your
system. Check that no Junkbuster
or Privoxy objects are in
@@ -301,32 +262,74 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Mac OS X
- Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
- icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
- Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
- installation process.
+ Installation instructions for the OS X platform depend upon whether
+ you downloaded a ready-built installation package (.pkg or .mpkg) or have
+ downloaded the source code.
+
+Installation from ready-built package
- The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
- installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
- prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
- computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
- /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy .
+ The downloaded file will either be a .pkg (for OS X 10.5 upwards) or a bzipped
+ .mpkg file (for OS X 10.4). The former can be double-clicked as is and the
+ installation will start; double-clicking the latter will unzip the .mpkg file
+ which can then be double-clicked to commence the installation.
- To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
- for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
- starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
+ The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
+ (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
+ configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
+ proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
+
+
+ To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
+ starts up, remove or rename the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist
+ (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
+ /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
+
+
+ To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the scripts startPrivoxy.sh
+ and stopPrivoxy.sh supplied in /Applications/Privoxy. They must be run from an
+ administrator account, using sudo.
+
+
+ To uninstall, run /Applications/Privoxy/uninstall.command as sudo from an
+ administrator account.
-
-
-AmigaOS
+
+Installation from source
- Copy and then unpack the lha archive to a suitable location.
- All necessary files will be installed into Privoxy
- directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
- remove this directory.
+ To build and install the Privoxy source code on OS X you will need to obtain
+ the macsetup module from the Privoxy Sourceforge CVS repository (refer to
+ Sourceforge help for details of how to set up a CVS client to have read-only
+ access to the repository). This module contains scripts that leverage the usual
+ open-source tools (available as part of Apple's free of charge Xcode
+ distribution or via the usual open-source software package managers for OS X
+ (MacPorts, Homebrew, Fink etc.) to build and then install the privoxy binary
+ and associated files. The macsetup module's README file contains complete
+ instructions for its use.
+
+
+ The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
+ (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
+ configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
+ proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
+
+
+ To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
+ starts up, remove or rename the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist
+ (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
+ /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
+
+
+ To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
+ for Mac OS X (also part of the macsetup module). This application can start
+ and stop the privoxy service and display its log and configuration files.
+
+
+ To uninstall, run the macsetup module's uninstall.sh as sudo from an
+ administrator account.
@@ -349,27 +352,6 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Gentoo
-
- Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for Privoxy are
- contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
- but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
- Privoxy Version is added to the Portage Tree).
-
-
- Before installing Privoxy under Gentoo just do
- first emerge --sync to get the latest changes from the
- Portage tree. With emerge privoxy you install the latest
- version.
-
-
- Configuration files are in /etc/privoxy , the
- documentation is in /usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;
- and the Log directory is in /var/log/privoxy .
-
-
The most convenient way to obtain the Privoxy sources
- is to download the source tarball from our
+ is to download the source tarball from our
project download
page .
@@ -386,8 +368,8 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
version directly from the
- CVS repository .
-
Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date
-
- As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
- of both the main separate
- package ) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
- download.
-
If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
@@ -420,7 +395,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
to the latest default.action file we strongly
- recommend that you use user.action and
+ recommend that you use user.action and
user.filter for your local
customizations of Privoxy . See the
What's New in this Release
+
+&changelog;
+
+
+
+
+Note to Upgraders
+
- Privoxy 3.0.16 is a stable release.
- The changes since 3.0.15 beta are:
+ A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
+ versions of Privoxy :
-
-
- Added the config file option handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok to
- work around Firefox bug #492459, which causes Firefox to hang
- if JavaScripts are blocked in certain situations. The option is
- enabled in the default config file.
-
-
-
-
- Added the config file option default-server-timeout to control the
- assumed default server timeout. Since Privoxy no longer returns
- an error message for connection resets on reused client connections,
- assuming larger server timeout values appears to actually work
- pretty well as long as connections aren't shared.
-
-
-
-
- Added optional support for FreeBSD's accf_http(9). Use the
- configure option --enable-accept-filter to enable it.
-
-
-
-
- Added fancier Privoxy icons for win32. Contributed by Jeff H.
-
-
-
-
- In daemon mode, fd 0, 1 and 2 are bound to /dev/null.
-
-
-
-
- Resolve localhost using whatever address family the operating
- system feels like. Previous betas would try to use IPv4 as this
- is what most users expect, but this didn't work reliably on
- GNU/Linux systems.
-
-
-
-
- In the action lists on CGI pages, actions and their parameters are
- no longer separated with a space. The action file parser doesn't
- actually allow this and will throw an invalid syntax error if actions
- and parameters in the action files are separated. Not adding the
- spaces means copy and pasting CGI output into the action files works.
-
-
-
-
- The default keep-alive timeout has been reduced to 5 seconds to work
- around hangs in clients that treat the proxy like any other host and
- stop allowing any new connections if the "maximum number of
- connections per host" is reached.
-
-
-
-
- Several webbug URLs that look like they are leading to images are now
- blocked as image instead of empty documents. Doing the latter causes
- WebKit-based clients to show a "missing image" icon which may mess up
- the layout.
-
-
-
-
- The no-such-domain template is used for DNS resolution
- problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled. Previously the
- connect-failed template was used. Reported by 'zebul666'.
-
-
-
-
- Accepts quoted expiration dates even though RFC 2109 10.1.2
- doesn't seem to allow them. Reported anonymously.
-
-
-
-
- Don't try to forget connections if connection sharing is disabled.
- This wasn't a real problem but caused an unnecessary log message.
-
-
-
-
- The still undocumented --enable-extended-host-patterns configure
- option has a better description.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed an error message that would claim a write to the server
- failed when actually writing to the client failed.
-
+
+
+
+ The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
+ configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
+ is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
+ diff and maybe patch .
+
+
+ There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
+ most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
+ files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
+ to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
+ &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
+
+
+
+
+ Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
+ including configuration files, therefore you should really save
+ any important configuration files!
+
+
+
+
+ On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
+ files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
+
+
+
+
+ standard.action has been merged into
+ the default.action file.
+
+
+
+
+ In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
+ You can change that in the
+
+
+
+
+ Three other config file settings are now off by default:
+
+
+
+
+
-
- If you missed the previous three beta versions, you may also be
- interested in the additional changes since 3.0.12, the
- last stable release:
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Added IPv6 support. Thanks to Petr Pisar who not only provided
- the initial patch but also helped a lot with the integration.
-
-
-
-
- Added client-side keep-alive support.
-
-
-
-
- The connection sharing code is only used if the connection-sharing
- option is enabled.
-
-
-
-
- The latency is taken into account when evaluating whether or not to
- reuse a connection. This should significantly reduce the number of
- connections problems several users reported.
-
-
-
-
- The max-client-connections option has been added to restrict
- the number of client connections below a value enforced by
- the operating system.
-
-
-
-
- If the server doesn't specify how long the connection stays alive,
- Privoxy errs on the safe side of caution and assumes it's only a second.
-
-
-
-
- Setting keep-alive-timeout to 0 disables keep-alive support. Previously
- Privoxy would claim to allow persistence but not reuse the connection.
-
-
-
-
- Pipelined requests are less likely to be mistaken for the request
- body of the previous request. Note that Privoxy still has no real
- pipeline support and will either serialize pipelined requests or
- drop them in which case the client has to resent them.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a crash on some Windows versions when header randomization
- is enabled and the date couldn't be parsed.
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy's keep-alive timeout for the current connection is reduced
- to the one specified in the client's Keep-Alive header.
-
-
-
-
- For HTTP/1.1 requests, Privoxy implies keep-alive support by not
- setting any Connection header instead of using 'Connection: keep-alive'.
-
-
-
-
- If the socket isn't reusable, Privoxy doesn't temporarily waste
- a socket slot to remember the connection.
-
-
-
-
- If keep-alive support is disabled but compiled in, the client's
- Keep-Alive header is removed.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a bug on mingw32 where downloading large files failed if
- keep-alive support was enabled.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a bug that (at least theoretically) could cause log
- timestamps to be occasionally off by about a second.
-
-
-
-
- The configure script respects the $PATH variable when searching
- for groups and id.
-
-
-
-
- Compressed content with extra fields couldn't be decompressed
- and would get passed to the client unfiltered. This problem
- has only be detected through statical analysis with clang as
- nobody seems to be using extra fields anyway.
-
-
-
-
- If the server resets the Connection after sending only the headers
- Privoxy forwards what it got to the client. Previously Privoxy
- would deliver an error message instead.
-
-
-
-
- Error messages in case of connection timeouts use the right
- HTTP status code.
-
-
-
-
- If spawning a child to handle a request fails, the client
- gets an error message and Privoxy continues to listen for
- new requests right away.
-
-
-
-
- The error messages in case of server-connection timeouts or
- prematurely closed server connections are now template-based.
-
-
-
-
- If zlib support isn't compiled in, Privoxy no longer tries to
- filter compressed content unless explicitly asked to do so.
-
-
-
-
- In case of connections that are denied based on ACL directives,
- the memory used for the client IP is no longer leaked.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed another small memory leak if the client request times out
- while waiting for client headers other than the request line.
-
-
-
-
- The client socket is kept open until the server socket has
- been marked as unused. This should increase the chances that
- the still-open connection will be reused for the client's next
- request to the same destination. Note that this only matters
- if connection-sharing is enabled.
-
-
-
-
- A TODO list has been added to the source tarball to give potential
- volunteers a better idea of what the current goals are. Donations
- are still welcome too: http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#DONATE
-
-
-
-
- In case of missing server data, no error message is send to the
- client if the request arrived on a reused connection. The client
- is then supposed to silently retry the request without bothering
- the user. This should significantly reduce the frequency of the
- "No server or forwarder data received" error message many users
- reported.
-
-
-
-
- More reliable detection of prematurely closed client sockets
- with keep-alive enabled.
-
-
-
-
- FEATURE_CONNECTION_KEEP_ALIVE is decoupled from
- FEATURE_CONNECTION_SHARING and now available on
- all platforms.
-
-
-
-
- Improved handling of POST requests on reused connections.
- Should fix problems with stalled connections after submitting
- form data with some browser configurations.
-
-
-
-
- Fixed various latency calculation issues.
-
-
-
-
- Allows the client to pass NTLM authentication requests to a
- forwarding proxy. This was already assumed and hinted to work
- in 3.0.13 beta but actually didn't. Now it's confirmed to work
- with IE, Firefox and Chrome.
- Thanks to Francois Botha and Wan-Teh Chang
-
-
-
-
- Fixed a calculation problem if receiving the server headers
- takes more than two reads, that could cause Privoxy to terminate
- the connection prematurely. Reported by Oliver.
-
-
-
-
- Compiles again on platforms such as OpenBSD and systems
- using earlier glibc version that don't support AI_ADDRCONFIG.
- Anonymously submitted in #2872591.
-
-
-
-
- A bunch of MS VC project files and Suse and Redhat RPM spec
- files have been removed as they were no longer maintained for
- quite some time.
-
-
-
-
- Overly long action lines are properly rejected with a proper
- error message. Previously they would be either rejected as
- invalid or cause a core dump through abort().
-
-
-
-
- Already timed-out connections are no longer temporarily remembered.
- They weren't reused anyway, but wasted a socket slot.
-
-
-
-
- len refers to the number of bytes actually read which might
- differ from the ones received. Adjust log messages accordingly.
-
-
-
-
- The optional JavaScript on the CGI page uses encodeURIComponent()
- instead of escape() which doesn't encode all characters that matter.
- Anonymously reported in #2832722.
-
-
-
-
- Fix gcc45 warnings in decompress_iob().
-
-
-
-
- Various log message improvements.
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy-Regression-Test supports redirect tests.
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy-Log-Parser can gather some connection statistics.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Note to Upgraders
-
-
- A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
- versions of Privoxy :
-
+
+
+
+Quickstart to Using Privoxy
- The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
- configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
- is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
- diff and maybe patch .
-
+ Install Privoxy . See the
+
+
+
- There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
- most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
- files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
- to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
- &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
+ Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy
+ service to more than just their local machine should check the
+
-
- Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
- including configuration files, therefore you should really save
- any important configuration files!
+
+ Start Privoxy , if the installation program has
+ not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
+ Privoxy .
+
-
- On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
- files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
+
+ Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and
+ HTTPS (SSL) proxy
+ by setting the proxy configuration for address of
+ 127.0.0.1 and port 8118 .
+ DO NOT activate proxying for FTP or
+ any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
+ browser from using these protocols.
+
-
- standard.action has been merged into
- the default.action file.
+
+ Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
+ If using Privoxy to manage
+ cookies ,
+ you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
+
- In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
- You can change that in the web-based action editor though.
+ Be sure to read the warnings first.
+
+ See the Privoxy blocks ads and
+ banners.
+
-
- Three other config file settings are now off by default:
-
-
+
+ If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
+ blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
+ Privoxy's behavior, take a look at the web-based user interface . The
+ Appendix
has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
+ misbehave
.
+
+
-
-
-
-
-
- Quickstart to Using Privoxy
-
-
-
-
-
- Install Privoxy . See the
-
-
-
-
- Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy
- service to more than just their local machine should check the
-
-
-
-
- Start Privoxy , if the installation program has
- not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
- Privoxy .
-
-
-
-
-
- Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and
- HTTPS (SSL) proxy
- by setting the proxy configuration for address of
- 127.0.0.1 and port 8118 .
- DO NOT activate proxying for FTP or
- any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
- browser from using these protocols.
-
-
-
-
-
- Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
- If using Privoxy to manage
- cookies ,
- you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
-
-
-
-
-
- A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
- most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
- configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
- to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
- to enable the
- web-based action editor though.
- Be sure to read the warnings first.
-
-
- See the Privoxy blocks ads and
- banners.
-
-
-
-
-
- If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
- blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
- Privoxy's behavior, take a look at the web-based user interface . The
- Appendix
has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
- misbehave
.
-
-
-
-
Please see the section
-
+
Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
-
+
@@ -1130,35 +674,35 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Quickstart to Ad Blocking
Ad blocking is but one of Privoxy's
- array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
+ array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
-
- This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
+
+ This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
- more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
- things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
+ more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
+ things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
problem
sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
- configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
- not an easy way to eliminate all ads. Either take
+ configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
+ not an easy way to eliminate all ads. Either take
the easy way and settle for most ads blocked with the
default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
habits and preferences.
Secondly, a brief explanation of Privoxy's
- actions
. Actions
in this context, are
+ actions
. Actions
in this context, are
the directives we use to tell Privoxy to perform
some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
Privoxy to take some action
. Each
@@ -1170,7 +714,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Actions are specified in Privoxy's configuration,
- followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
+ followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
can actually be URL type
The most important actions for basic ad blocking are:
-
+
- Privoxy 's own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
-
+
- Privoxy to treat this URL as an image.
Privoxy 's default configuration already does this
for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
- some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
+ some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
Privoxy BLOCKED page (which would only result in
a broken image
icon). There are some limitations to this
though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
an entire HTML page in most situations.
-
+
- Privoxy's
- normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
+ Privoxy's
+ normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
-
+
@@ -1255,7 +799,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
- pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
+ pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
replacement is obvious. This is the default.
@@ -1271,14 +815,14 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
-
+
Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
- block
blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
@@ -1293,7 +837,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
the special Privoxy editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
- (shortcut: http://p.p/show-status ). This
+ (shortcut: http://p.p/show-status ). This
is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
@@ -1325,21 +869,21 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
- Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
+ Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
Copy Link Location
from the
- pop-up menu.
+ pop-up menu.
-
+
- Set your browser to
+ Set your browser to
http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
-
+
- Find user.action in the top section, and click
+ Find user.action in the top section, and click
on Edit
:
@@ -1349,29 +893,29 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]
-
-
+
+
You should have a section with only
- Actions:
.
If not, click a Insert new section below
- button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
+ button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
Edit button right under the word Actions:
.
This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
Enabled
column, then Submit
just below the list.
-
+
Now, in the Submit
(or
OK
if in a pop-up window).
-
+
Now go back to the original page, and press SHIFT-Reload
(or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
-
-
+
+
- This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
+ This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
- site. For a more extensive explanation of patterns
, and
+ site. For a more extensive explanation of patterns
, and
the entire actions concept, see
@@ -1406,11 +950,11 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
- There are also various
- advanced
usage category, and are explained in
- depth in later sections.
+ depth in later sections.
@@ -1426,14 +970,14 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
Before launching Privoxy for the first time, you
will want to configure your browser(s) to use
- Privoxy as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
+ Privoxy as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
proxy . The default is
127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done
!
- Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and
+ Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and
HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
@@ -1444,35 +988,35 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]
-
-
+
+
With Firefox , this is typically set under:
-
+
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network ->Connection -> Settings
-
+
Or optionally on some platforms:
-
+
Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Connection Settings -> Manual Proxy Configuration
-
+
With Netscape (and
Mozilla ), this can be set under:
@@ -1486,7 +1030,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
- For Internet Explorer v.5-7 :
+ For Internet Explorer v.5-7 :
@@ -1508,7 +1052,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
+
[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]
@@ -1519,7 +1063,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
- re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
+ re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
any cookies ,
if you want Privoxy to manage that. You are now
ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
@@ -1583,7 +1127,7 @@ Click on the &my-app; Icon to start Privoxy . If no co
Privoxy can run with full Windows service functionality.
On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
- to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
+ to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
@@ -1650,7 +1194,7 @@ Example Unix startup command:
Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
startnet script (AmiTCP), in
s:user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your
- startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
+ startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
Privoxy will automatically quit when you quit your
TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
Privoxy is still running).
@@ -1660,7 +1204,7 @@ Example Unix startup command:
Gentoo
- A script is again used. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config
+ A script is again used. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config
as its main configuration file.
@@ -1669,11 +1213,11 @@ Example Unix startup command:
- Note that Privoxy is not automatically started at
- boot time by default. You can change this with the rc-update
+ Note that Privoxy is not automatically started at
+ boot time by default. You can change this with the rc-update
command.
-
+
rc-update add privoxy default
@@ -1695,7 +1239,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
actions
Privoxy configuration. There are several
- such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
+ such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
@@ -1715,7 +1259,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
sites is the popup-killing (through +filter{popups}
@@ -1731,24 +1275,24 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
- After running Privoxy for a while, you can
- start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
- preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
- be customized. Actions
- can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
+ After running Privoxy for a while, you can
+ start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
+ preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
+ be customized. Actions
+ can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
http://config.privoxy.org/
- (shortcut: http://p.p/ ),
- and then follow the link to View & Change the Current Configuration
.
+ (shortcut: http://p.p/ ),
+ and then follow the link to View & Change the Current Configuration
.
(This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
In fact, various aspects of Privoxy
- configuration can be viewed from this page, including
- current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
- the browser's request headers, and actions
that apply
- to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
- editor mentioned above, Privoxy can also
+ configuration can be viewed from this page, including
+ current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
+ the browser's request headers, and actions
that apply
+ to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
+ editor mentioned above, Privoxy can also
be turned on
and off
(toggled) from this page.
@@ -1771,9 +1315,9 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
- Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
+ Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
section Contacting the
- Developers
below.
+ Developers below.
-->
@@ -1789,6 +1333,27 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
+
+
+ --config-test
+
+
+ Exit after loading the configuration files before binding to
+ the listen address. The exit code signals whether or not the
+ configuration files have been successfully loaded.
+
+
+ If the exit code is 1, at least one of the configuration files
+ is invalid, if it is 0, all the configuration files have been
+ successfully loaded (but may still contain errors that can
+ currently only be detected at run time).
+
+
+ This option doesn't affect the log setting, combination with
+ --no-daemon is recommended if a configured
+ log file shouldn't be used.
+
+
--version
@@ -1796,7 +1361,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
Print version info and exit. Unix only.
-
+
--help
@@ -1804,7 +1369,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
-
+
--no-daemon
@@ -1813,7 +1378,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
-
+
--pidfile FILE
@@ -1824,7 +1389,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
FILE is non-fatal. If no FILE
option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
-
+
--user USER[.GROUP]
@@ -1840,9 +1405,9 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
--chroot
- Before changing to the user ID given in the --user option,
+ Before changing to the user ID given in the --user option,
chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
- process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
+ process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
Unix only.
@@ -1870,23 +1435,23 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph
configfile
- If no configfile is included on the command line,
- Privoxy will look for a file named
- config
in the current directory (except on Win32
- where it will look for config.txt
instead). Specify
- full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
+ If no configfile is included on the command line,
+ Privoxy will look for a file named
+ config
in the current directory (except on Win32
+ where it will look for config.txt
instead). Specify
+ full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
Privoxy will fail to start.
-
+
- On MS Windows only there are two additional
- command-line options to allow Privoxy to install and
- run as a service . See the
-MS Windows only there are two additional
+ command-line options to allow Privoxy to install and
+ run as a service . See the
+
@@ -1900,9 +1465,9 @@ for details.
Privoxy Configuration
- All Privoxy configuration is stored
+ All Privoxy configuration is stored
in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
- Many important aspects of Privoxy can
+ Many important aspects of Privoxy can
also be controlled easily with a web browser.
@@ -1912,9 +1477,9 @@ for details.
Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
- Privoxy 's user interface can be reached through the special
+ Privoxy 's user interface can be reached through the special
URL http://config.privoxy.org/
- (shortcut: http://p.p/ ),
+ (shortcut: http://p.p/ ),
which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
You will see the following section:
@@ -1956,14 +1521,14 @@ for details.
cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
Privoxy . This is an easy way to adjust various
aspects of Privoxy configuration. The actions
- file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
+ file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
- Toggle Privoxy On or Off
is handy for sites that might
+ Toggle Privoxy On or Off
is handy for sites that might
have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
- it as a test to see whether it is Privoxy
- causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues
+ it as a test to see whether it is Privoxy
+ causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues
to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
Privoxy acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
is even a toggle
For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
/etc/privoxy/ by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
- AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
+ AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
Privoxy executable.
- The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
+ The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
principle configuration files are:
@@ -2014,7 +1579,7 @@ for details.
on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and config.txt
on Windows. This is a required file.
-
+
@@ -2028,23 +1593,23 @@ for details.
It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
- Multiple actions files may be defined in config . These
- are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
+ Multiple actions files may be defined in config . These
+ are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
match-all.action (which you will most probably want
to define sooner or later) are best applied in user.action ,
where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
-
+
There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
(Shortcut: http://p.p/show-status ) for the
- various actions files.
+ various actions files.
-
+
@@ -2052,15 +1617,15 @@ for details.
file) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
- whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
- default.filter includes various filters made
- available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
- others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
- filter files in config as you can with
- actions files. We suggest user.filter for any
+ whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
+ default.filter includes various filters made
+ available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
+ others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
+ filter files in config as you can with
+ actions files. We suggest user.filter for any
locally defined filters or customizations.
-
+
@@ -2082,15 +1647,15 @@ for details.
- The actions files and filter files
+ The actions files and filter files
can use Perl style
After making any changes, there is no need to restart
Privoxy in order for the changes to take
- effect. Privoxy detects such changes
+ effect. Privoxy detects such changes
automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
of Privoxy , these wake up
requests
@@ -2099,9 +1664,9 @@ for details.
- While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
- The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
- Also, what constitutes a default
setting, may change, so
+ While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
+ The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
+ Also, what constitutes a default
setting, may change, so
please check all your configuration files on important issues.
]]>
@@ -2137,15 +1702,15 @@ for details.
The actions files are used to define what actions
Privoxy takes for which URLs, and thus determines
how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
- transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
+ transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
Each action does something a little different.
- These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
- our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
+ These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
+ our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
-
+
- There
+ There
are three action files included with Privoxy with
differing purposes:
@@ -2158,7 +1723,7 @@ for details.
content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
It should be the first actions file loaded
-
+
default.action - defines many exceptions (both
@@ -2167,15 +1732,15 @@ for details.
work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
-
+
- user.action - is intended to be for local site
+ user.action - is intended to be for local site
preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
- has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
+ has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
-
+
Edit Set to Cautious Set to Medium Set to Advanced
@@ -2183,16 +1748,16 @@ for details.
These have increasing levels of aggressiveness and have no
influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
- editor . A default installation should be pre-set to
+ editor. A default installation should be pre-set to
Cautious . New users should try this for a while before
- adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
- the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
+ adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
+ the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
not working as they should.
- The Edit button allows you to turn each
+ The Edit button allows you to turn each
action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The Cautious
- button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
+ button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
Medium button sets the list to a medium level of
@@ -2263,7 +1828,7 @@ for details.
blocks only
blocks only
-
+
Privacy Features
low
@@ -2332,12 +1897,12 @@ for details.
-
+
-
+
- The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
+ The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
default.action is typically processed before
user.action ). The content of these can all be viewed and
@@ -2348,7 +1913,7 @@ for details.
(defined in default.action ),
followed by any exceptions (typically also in
default.action ), which are then followed lastly by any
- local preferences (typically in user .action ).
+ local preferences (typically in user .action ).
Generally, user.action has the last word.
@@ -2358,7 +1923,7 @@ for details.
very careful with using such a
- universal set in user.action or any other actions file after
+ universal set in user.action or any other actions file after
default.action , because it will override the result
from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
@@ -2367,7 +1932,7 @@ for details.
personal settings across Privoxy upgrades easier.
-
+
Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
@@ -2383,7 +1948,7 @@ for details.
Note that some aggressive
your default settings (in the top section of the
actions file) are, the more exceptions for trusted
sites you
@@ -2415,13 +1980,13 @@ for details.
like Cautious
, Medium
or
Advanced
. Warning: the Advanced
setting is more
aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
- Experienced users only!
+ Experienced users only!
If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
- default.action which is richly commented with many
+ default.action which is richly commented with many
good examples.
@@ -2449,12 +2014,12 @@ for details.
If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
- E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of {
+ E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of {
+ ,
then later another one with just {
+ , resulting
- in both actions to apply. And there may well be
- cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
+ in both actions to apply. And there may well be
+ cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
might look like:
@@ -2481,7 +2046,7 @@ for details.
Patterns
-
+
As mentioned, Privoxy uses patterns
to determine what actions might apply to which sites and
pages your browser attempts to access. These patterns
use wild
@@ -2489,7 +2054,7 @@ for details.
flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
against many similar patterns.
-
+
Generally, an URL pattern has the form
<domain><port>/<path> , where the
@@ -2501,8 +2066,8 @@ for details.
The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
- the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
- while the path part uses more flexible
+ the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
+ while the path part uses more flexible
Regular
Expressions
@@ -2520,7 +2085,7 @@ for details.
is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to www.example.com ,
regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
- this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
+ this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
simple example.com is different and would NOT match.
@@ -2592,7 +2157,7 @@ for details.
matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
- there is no top-level domain called .html . So its
+ there is no top-level domain called .html . So its
a mistake.
@@ -2605,7 +2170,7 @@ for details.
The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
- domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
+ domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
For example:
@@ -2643,7 +2208,7 @@ for details.
a domain.) This might be www.example.com ,
news.example.de , or
www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl for instance. All these
- cases are matched.
+ cases are matched.
@@ -2653,12 +2218,12 @@ for details.
Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
*
represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
- equivalent to the
+ equivalent to the
Regular
Expression
.*
),
?
represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
regular expression syntax of a simple .
), and you can define
- character classes
in square brackets which is similar to
+ character classes
in square brackets which is similar to
the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
@@ -2667,7 +2232,7 @@ for details.
ad*.example.com
- matches adserver.example.com
,
+ matches adserver.example.com
,
ads.example.com
, etc but not sfads.example.com
@@ -2685,7 +2250,7 @@ for details.
matches www.ipix.com ,
- pictures.epix.com , a.b.c.d.e.upix.com etc.
+ pictures.epix.com , a.b.c.d.e.upix.com etc.
@@ -2693,9 +2258,9 @@ for details.
www[1-9a-ez].example.c*
- matches www1.example.com ,
- www4.example.cc , wwwd.example.cy ,
- wwwz.example.com etc., but not
+ matches www1.example.com ,
+ www4.example.cc , wwwd.example.cy ,
+ wwwz.example.com etc., but not
wwww.example.com .
@@ -2729,13 +2294,13 @@ for details.
Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the /
,
- i.e. it matches as if it would start with a ^
(regular expression speak
+ i.e. it matches as if it would start with a ^
(regular expression speak
for the beginning of a line).
Please also note that matching in the path is CASE INSENSITIVE
- by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
+ by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
(?-i)
switch: www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* will match
only documents whose path starts with PaTtErN in
exactly this capitalization.
@@ -2746,7 +2311,7 @@ for details.
.example.com/.*
- Is equivalent to just .example.com
, since any documents
+ Is equivalent to just .example.com
, since any documents
within that domain are matched with or without the .*
regular expression. This is redundant
@@ -2760,9 +2325,9 @@ for details.
named index.html
, and that is part of some path. For
example, it matches www.example.com/testing/index.html
but
NOT www.example.com/index.html
because the regular
- expression called for at least two /'s
, thus the path
- requirement. It also would match
- www.example.com/testing/index_html
, because of the
+ expression called for at least two /'s
, thus the path
+ requirement. It also would match
+ www.example.com/testing/index_html
, because of the
special meta-character .
.
@@ -2771,9 +2336,9 @@ for details.
.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$
- This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
- named index.html
regardless of path which in this case can
- have one or more /'s
. And this one must contain exactly
+ This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
+ named index.html
regardless of path which in this case can
+ have one or more /'s
. And this one must contain exactly
.html
(but does not have to end with that!).
@@ -2783,7 +2348,7 @@ for details.
This regular expression will match any path of example.com
- that contains any of the words ads
, banner
,
+ that contains any of the words ads
, banner
,
banners
(because of the ?
) or junk
.
The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
@@ -2793,8 +2358,8 @@ for details.
.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$
- This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
- .jpg
, .jpeg
, .gif
or .png
. So this
+ This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
+ .jpg
, .jpeg
, .gif
or .png
. So this
one is limited to common image formats.
@@ -2802,7 +2367,7 @@ for details.
- There are many, many good examples to be found in default.action ,
+ There are many, many good examples to be found in default.action ,
and more tutorials below in
@@ -2892,23 +2457,23 @@ for details.
-
+
Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
- separated by whitespace, like in
+ separated by whitespace, like in
{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}} ,
followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
- of the actions file.
+ of the actions file.
-
+
Actions fall into three categories:
-
+
Boolean, i.e the action can only be enabled
or
disabled
. Syntax:
@@ -2917,14 +2482,14 @@ for details.
+name # enable action name
-name # disable action name
-
+
Example: +handle-as-image
-
+
Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
Syntax:
@@ -2938,13 +2503,13 @@ for details.
Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
-
+
Example: +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}
-
+
-
+
Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
same URL, but with different parameters, all the parameters
@@ -2959,7 +2524,7 @@ for details.
# If it was the last one left, disable the action.
-name # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list
-
+
Examples: +add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text} and
+filter{html-annoyances}
@@ -2978,8 +2543,8 @@ for details.
Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
- So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
- in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
+ So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
+ in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
as user.action ). For multi-valued actions, the actions
are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
the order they are defined in config (the default
@@ -3031,7 +2596,7 @@ for details.
Multi-value.
-
+
Parameter:
@@ -3042,14 +2607,14 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
- This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
- headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
- HTTP headers
are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
+ This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
+ headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
+ HTTP headers
are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
one.
@@ -3092,10 +2657,10 @@ for details.
the
@@ -3114,7 +2679,7 @@ for details.
A block reason that should be given to the user.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3125,18 +2690,18 @@ for details.
to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
enabled).
-
- A very important exception occurs if both
+
+ A very important exception occurs if both
block and
- It is important to understand this process, in order
- to understand how Privoxy deals with
- ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
+ It is important to understand this process, in order
+ to understand how Privoxy deals with
+ ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
upon which various other features depend.
@@ -3157,12 +2722,12 @@ for details.
# Block and replace with "blocked" page
.nasty-stuff.example.com
-{+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
+{+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
# Block and replace with image
.ad.doubleclick.net
.ads.r.us/banners/
-{+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
+{+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
# Block and then ignore
adserver.example.net/.*\.js$
@@ -3220,7 +2785,7 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3285,7 +2850,7 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3300,7 +2865,7 @@ for details.
and use their output as input.
- If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
+ If the request URI gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
@@ -3322,7 +2887,7 @@ for details.
{+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
/
-
+
@@ -3350,7 +2915,7 @@ for details.
Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
- tag.
+ tag.
@@ -3372,7 +2937,7 @@ for details.
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3416,6 +2981,22 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
+
+
+
+# Tag all requests with the Range header set
+{+client-header-tagger{range-requests}}
+/
+
+# Disable filtering for the tagged requests.
+#
+# With filtering enabled Privoxy would remove the Range headers
+# to be able to filter the whole response. The downside is that
+# it prevents clients from resuming downloads or skipping over
+# parts of multimedia files.
+{-filter -deanimate-gifs}
+TAG:^RANGE-REQUEST$
+
@@ -3457,11 +3038,11 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
Parameter:
- Any string.
-
+ Any string.
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3470,7 +3051,7 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
- supported by the browser.
+ supported by the browser.
The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
@@ -3484,13 +3065,13 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
Content-Type: text/html
, you can use &my-app;
to overwrite it with application/xml
and validate
the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
- If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
+ If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
- text/html
and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
+ text/html
and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
By default content-type-overwrite only replaces
@@ -3508,7 +3089,7 @@ TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
Of course you can apply content-type-overwrite
to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
- more work to get the same precision.
+ more work to get the same precision.
@@ -3570,10 +3151,10 @@ new action
Any string.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3606,7 +3187,7 @@ new action
Example usage (section):
- # Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
+ # Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
{ +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
/
@@ -3653,10 +3234,10 @@ new action
N/A
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3740,7 +3321,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3753,7 +3334,7 @@ new action
It makes no sense at all to use this action in conjunction
with the
@@ -3807,10 +3388,10 @@ new action
Any string.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3891,7 +3472,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -3959,7 +3540,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -4027,16 +3608,26 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
This is a left-over from the time when Privoxy
didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
- unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
- out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
- so there is a chance you might need this action.
+ unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1-related problems with some server
+ out there.
+
+
+ Note that enabling this action is only a workaround. It should not
+ be enabled for sites that work without it. While it shouldn't break
+ any pages, it has an (usually negative) performance impact.
+
+
+ If you come across a site where enabling this action helps, please report it,
+ so the cause of the problem can be analyzed. If the problem turns out to be
+ caused by a bug in Privoxy it should be
+ fixed so the following release works without the work around.
@@ -4107,7 +3698,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
Notes:
-
+
Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
@@ -4125,7 +3716,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
- this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
+ this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
@@ -4166,7 +3757,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
{ +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
- one.example.com
+ one.example.com
{ +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
another.example.com/testing
@@ -4186,7 +3777,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
Typical use:
- Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
+ Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.
@@ -4211,17 +3802,17 @@ problem-host.example.com
Parameterized.
-
+
Parameter:
The name of a content filter, as defined in the default.filter is the collection of filters
- supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
+ option in the default.filter is the collection of filters
+ supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
in their own file, such as user.filter .
@@ -4230,38 +3821,39 @@ problem-host.example.com
-
+
Notes:
- For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
+ For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
a list.
Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
- passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
- since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
- noticeable on slower connections.
+ passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
+ doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
+ not incrementally displayed.)
+ This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
Rolling your own
- filters requires a knowledge of
+ filters requires a knowledge of
Regular
- Expressions
HTML
action
is not available.
- The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
+ The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
@@ -4272,10 +3864,10 @@ problem-host.example.com
by defining appropriate -filter exceptions.
- Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
- is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
- in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
- it.
+ Compressed content can't be filtered either, but if &my-app;
+ is compiled with zlib support and a supported compression algorithm
+ is used (gzip or deflate), &my-app; can first decompress the content
+ and then filter it.
If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
@@ -4284,11 +3876,11 @@ problem-host.example.com
action in conjunction with filter .
- Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
+ Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
@@ -4306,7 +3898,7 @@ problem-host.example.com
Example usage (with filters from the distribution default.filter file).
- See
@@ -4438,7 +4030,7 @@ new action
Declares a document as text, even if the Content-Type:
isn't detected as such.
-
+
@@ -4470,7 +4062,7 @@ new action
force-text-mode declares a document as text,
without looking at the Content-Type:
first.
-
+
Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
with regular expressions can cause file damage.
@@ -4478,7 +4070,7 @@ new action
-
+
Example usage:
@@ -4512,7 +4104,7 @@ new action
Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
-
+
@@ -4566,7 +4158,7 @@ new action
file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
-
+
Please read the description for the
-
+
Example usage:
@@ -4678,7 +4270,7 @@ new action
# Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
-# but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
+# but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
{+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
example.org/.*\.js$
@@ -4731,14 +4323,14 @@ example.org/.*\.js$
-
+
Notes:
The below generic example section is actually part of default.action .
It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
- be left intact.
+ be left intact.
Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
@@ -4812,10 +4404,10 @@ new action
Keyword: block
, or any user defined value.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -4841,7 +4433,7 @@ new action
to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
- you should stick to a common language.
+ you should stick to a common language.
@@ -4898,10 +4490,10 @@ new action
Keyword: block
, or any user defined value.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -4970,7 +4562,7 @@ new action
Effect:
- Deletes the If-Modified-Since:
HTTP client header or modifies its value.
+ Deletes the If-Modified-Since:
HTTP client header or modifies its value.
@@ -4988,10 +4580,10 @@ new action
Keyword: block
, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5079,12 +4671,12 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
- The keyword block
will completely remove the header
+ The keyword block
will completely remove the header
(not to be confused with the
@@ -5165,7 +4757,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5194,12 +4786,12 @@ new action
will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
-
+
hide-referer is an alternate spelling of
hide-referrer and the two can be can be freely
substituted with each other. (referrer
is the
correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
- requires it to be spelled as referer
.)
+ requires it to be spelled as referer
.)
@@ -5255,16 +4847,16 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
-
+
This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
way, is NOT the right thing to do: good web sites
- work browser-independently).
+ work browser-independently).
@@ -5273,17 +4865,14 @@ new action
not recommended . In single-user, single-browser
setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
- OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
- sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
- reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
- let Mozilla enter, yet forging to a
- Netscape 6.1 user-agent works just fine.
- (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
+ OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
+ sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
+ reason in some cases).
- More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
+ More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
http://www.user-agents.org/
- and
+ and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent .
@@ -5339,7 +4928,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5382,18 +4971,16 @@ new action
+
-
-prevent-compression
+
+limit-cookie-lifetime
Typical use:
-
- Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
- passed through
+ Limit the lifetime of HTTP cookies to a couple of minutes or hours.
@@ -5401,7 +4988,7 @@ new action
Effect:
- Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
+ Overwrites the expires field in Set-Cookie server headers if it's above the specified limit.
@@ -5410,7 +4997,7 @@ new action
Type:
- Boolean.
+ Parameterized.
@@ -5418,11 +5005,101 @@ new action
Parameter:
- N/A
+ The lifetime limit in minutes, or 0.
-
+
+
+ Notes:
+
+
+ This action reduces the lifetime of HTTP cookies coming from the
+ server to the specified number of minutes, starting from the time
+ the cookie passes Privoxy.
+
+
+ Cookies with a lifetime below the limit are not modified.
+ The lifetime of session cookies is set to the specified limit.
+
+
+ The effect of this action depends on the server.
+
+
+ In case of servers which refresh their cookies with each response
+ (or at least frequently), the lifetime limit set by this action
+ is updated as well.
+ Thus, a session associated with the cookie continues to work with
+ this action enabled, as long as a new request is made before the
+ last limit set is reached.
+
+
+ However, some servers send their cookies once, with a lifetime of several
+ years (the year 2037 is a popular choice), and do not refresh them
+ until a certain event in the future, for example the user logging out.
+ In this case this action may limit the absolute lifetime of the session,
+ even if requests are made frequently.
+
+
+ If the parameter is 0
, this action behaves like
+
+
+
+
+
+ Example usages:
+
+
+ +limit-cookie-lifetime{60}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+prevent-compression
+
+
+
+ Typical use:
+
+
+ Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
+ passed through
+
+
+
+
+ Effect:
+
+
+ Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Type:
+
+
+ Boolean.
+
+
+
+
+ Parameter:
+
+
+ N/A
+
+
+
+
Notes:
@@ -5442,7 +5119,7 @@ new action
Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
- unusual.
+ unusual.
Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
@@ -5507,7 +5184,7 @@ new action
Effect:
- Deletes the Last-Modified:
HTTP server header or modifies its value.
+ Deletes the Last-Modified:
HTTP server header or modifies its value.
@@ -5526,10 +5203,10 @@ new action
One of the keywords: block
, reset-to-request-time
and randomize
-
+
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5545,7 +5222,7 @@ new action
between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
could send each document with a different Last-Modified:
header to track visits without using cookies. Randomize
- makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
+ makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
reset-to-request-time
overwrites the value of the
@@ -5561,7 +5238,7 @@ new action
of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
It is also recommended to use this action together with
@@ -5628,7 +5305,7 @@ new action
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5638,6 +5315,10 @@ new action
either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
single pcrs command to the original URL.
+
+ The syntax for pcrs commands is documented in the
+
This action will be ignored if you use it together with
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5820,7 +5501,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
-
+
Notes:
@@ -5871,7 +5552,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
Allow only temporary session
cookies (for the current
- browser session only ).
+ browser session only ).
@@ -5903,12 +5584,12 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
-
+
Notes:
- This is less strict than
@@ -5916,7 +5597,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
session-cookies-only and will forget about them between sessions.
This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
- that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
+ that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
sites, and is the recommended setting.
@@ -5935,9 +5616,9 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
These would have to be removed manually.
- Privoxy also uses
- the Privoxy also uses
+ the session-cookies-only .
@@ -6011,7 +5692,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
target-url
to
send a redirect to target-url . You can redirect
- to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via file:///
URL.
+ to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via file:///
URL.
(But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
@@ -6074,8 +5755,8 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
Summary
Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
- misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
- a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
+ misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
+ a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
and fast rules for all sites. See the =
,
- {
and }
, but we strongly
+ {
and }
, but we strongly
recommend that you only use a
to z
,
0
to 9
, +
, and -
.
Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
@@ -6160,7 +5841,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
- ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
+ ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
up for the /
pattern):
@@ -6178,7 +5859,7 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
# Shopping sites:
# Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
- #
+ #
{shop}
.quietpc.com
.worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
@@ -6192,8 +5873,8 @@ example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
- Aliases like shop
and fragile
are typically used for
- problem
sites that require more than one action to be disabled
+ Aliases like shop
and fragile
are typically used for
+ problem
sites that require more than one action to be disabled
in order to function properly.
@@ -6238,7 +5919,7 @@ hal stop here
preceding the action name enables the action, a -
disables!).
Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
multiple lines with line continuation.
-
+
@@ -6341,13 +6022,13 @@ mail.google.com
require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
-
+
# Shopping sites:
#
{ shop }
-.quietpc.com
+.quietpc.com
.worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
.jungle.com
.scan.co.uk
@@ -6416,7 +6097,7 @@ edit.*.yahoo.com
# Known ad generators:
#
{ +block-as-image }
-ar.atwola.com
+ar.atwola.com
.ad.doubleclick.net
.ad.*.doubleclick.net
.a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
@@ -6451,7 +6132,7 @@ bs*.gsanet.com
{
But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
- to block. The pattern .*ads. e.g. catches
+ to block. The pattern .*ads. e.g. catches
nasty-ads .nasty-corp.com
as intended,
but also downloads .sourcefroge.net
or
ads l.some-provider.net.
So here come some
@@ -6499,7 +6180,7 @@ count*.
##########################################################################
# By domain:
-#
+#
{ -
So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
- which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
+ which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
- be placed in user.action , which is parsed after all other
+ be placed in user.action , which is parsed after all other
actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
- defined actions. user.action is also a
+ defined actions. user.action is also a
safe place for your personal settings, since
default.action is actively maintained by the
Privoxy developers and you'll probably want
@@ -6564,7 +6245,7 @@ wiki.
So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
- user.action :
+ user.action :
@@ -6587,8 +6268,8 @@ wiki.
# (Re-)define aliases for this file:
#
{{alias}}
-#
-# These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
+#
+# These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
# be self explanatory.
#
+crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
@@ -6619,7 +6300,7 @@ handle-as-text = -copy image location
- and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
+ and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
{ +block{} } section. Note that { +handle-as-image
} need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
.gif will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
@@ -6682,7 +6363,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
makes it impossible for Privoxy to guess
- the file type just by looking at the URL.
+ the file type just by looking at the URL.
You can use the +block-as-image alias defined above for
these cases.
Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
@@ -6707,7 +6388,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
-- whoa! -- it worked. The fragile
aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
good for testing purposes to see if it is Privoxy
- that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
+ that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
@@ -6752,19 +6433,19 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
{ allow-ads }
.sourceforge.net
.slashdot.org
- .osdn.net
+ .osdn.net
- Note that allow-ads has been aliased to
- - ,
- - , and
+ Note that allow-ads has been aliased to
+ - ,
+ - , and
- above.
Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type
- application/x-sh which typically would open a download type
+ application/x-sh which typically would open a download type
dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
it should I choose to.
@@ -6772,7 +6453,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
{ handle-as-text }
- /.*\.sh$
+ /.*\.sh$
@@ -6807,7 +6488,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
On-the-fly text substitutions need
- to be defined in a filter file
. Once defined, they
+ to be defined in a filter file
. Once defined, they
can then be invoked as an action
.
@@ -6861,7 +6542,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to roll
- your own
filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
+ your own filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
and, of course, regular expressions.
@@ -6871,7 +6552,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
keywords FILTER: ,
CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER: or SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:
- followed by the filter's name , and a short (one line)
+ followed by the filter's name , and a short (one line)
description of what it does. Below that line
come the jobs , i.e. lines that define the actual
text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
@@ -6886,7 +6567,7 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
+name }
-
+
Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
type, the filter name and the filter description.
@@ -6910,13 +6591,13 @@ stupid-server.example.com/
- If you are new to
+ If you are new to
Regular
Expressions
Perl
manual for
- the
+ the
s/// operator's syntax and Perl-style regular
expressions in general.
@@ -7031,7 +6712,7 @@ s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|U
Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
lets look at the substitute: $1"Not Your Business!"$2 is
- easy to read: The text remembered as $1 , followed by
+ easy to read: The text remembered as $1 , followed by
"Not Your Business!" (including
the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as $2 .
This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
@@ -7098,7 +6779,7 @@ s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU
Note that the i option makes the pattern matching
case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use [^>]*
- instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the
+ instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the
<body> tag if it doesn't contain OnUnload
, but the page's
content does.
@@ -7118,7 +6799,7 @@ s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig
Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead)
- in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
+ in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
.com
appears directly following microsoft
in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
still replacing the word everywhere else.
@@ -7144,7 +6825,7 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \
The x option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
- e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
+ e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
@@ -7156,11 +6837,11 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \
The Pre-defined Filters
-
@@ -7200,12 +6881,12 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
- Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
+ Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
rely heavily on JavaScript.
-
+
js-events
@@ -7229,7 +6910,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
- The BLINK and MARQUEE tags
+ The BLINK and MARQUEE tags
are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
@@ -7250,19 +6931,19 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
- cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
+ cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
- use the cookie crunch actions.
+ use the cookie crunch actions.
- refresh tags refresh-tags
- Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
- that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
+ Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
+ that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
annoying.
@@ -7273,9 +6954,9 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
unsolicited-popups
- This filter attempts to prevent only unsolicited
pop-up
- windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
- has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
+ This filter attempts to prevent only unsolicited
pop-up
+ windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
+ has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
as an improvement over earlier such filters.
@@ -7286,7 +6967,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
- reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
+ reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
in order to function normally. Use with caution.
@@ -7319,7 +7000,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
banners-by-size
- This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
+ This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
@@ -7328,7 +7009,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
- Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
+ Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
block rules should catch 95+% of all ads without this filter enabled.
@@ -7338,7 +7019,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
banners-by-link
- This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
+ This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
@@ -7349,7 +7030,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
webbugs
- Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
+ Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
@@ -7368,7 +7049,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
- multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
+ multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
@@ -7412,20 +7093,20 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
- HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
+ HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
- This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
- It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
+ This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
+ It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
- sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
+ sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
the fly.
+-->
@@ -7435,7 +7116,7 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
- out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
+ out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
@@ -7511,2257 +7192,1326 @@ pre-defined filters for your convenience:
-
+
yahoo
- Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
+ Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
a width limitation as well.
-
-
-
- msn
-
- Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
- tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
-
-
-
-
-
- blogspot
-
- Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
-
-
- This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
- page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded corners
would
- appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
- that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
-
-
-
-
-
- xml-to-html
-
- Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
-
-
-
-
-
- html-to-xml
-
- Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
-
-
-
-
-
- no-ping
-
- Removes the non-standard ping attribute from
- anchor and area HTML tags.
-
-
-
-
-
- hide-tor-exit-notation
-
- Client-header filter to remove the Tor exit node notation
- found in Host and Referer headers.
-
-
- If &my-app; and Tor are chained and &my-app;
- is configured to use socks4a, one can use http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/
- to access the host www.example.org
through the
- Tor exit node foobar
.
-
-
- As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
- whole string www.example.org.foobar.exit
as host and uses it
- for the Host
and Referer
headers. From the
- server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
-
-
- An invalid Referer
header can trigger hot-linking
- protections, an invalid Host
header will make it impossible for
- the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
-
-
- This client-header filter removes the foo.exit
part in those headers
- to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
- the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
- to detect your Tor exit node based on the IP address
- the request is coming from.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Privoxy's Template Files
-
- All Privoxy built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
- 404 - No Such Domain
- error pageBLOCKED
- pageweb-based
- user interface , are generated from templates .
- (Privoxy must be running for the above links to work as
- intended.)
-
-
-
- These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the templates . On Unixish platforms,
- this is typically
- /etc/privoxy/templates/
-
-
- The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
- or exports), which Privoxy fills at run time. It
- is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
- to customize them. (Not recommended for the casual
- user ). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
- the config setting
-
- Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
- with # are ignored when the templates are filled in.
-
-
-
- The place-holders are of the form @name@ , and you will
- find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
- in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
- always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
- code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
-
-
-
- A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
- blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
- for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
- our user interface (CGI) pages when Privoxy
- is in an alpha or beta development stage:
-
-
-
-
-<!-- @if-unstable-start -->
-
- ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
-
-<!-- if-unstable-end@ -->
-
-
-
- If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
- @if-unstable-start and if-unstable-end@
- will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
-
-
-
- <!-- -->
-
-
-
- There's also an if-then-else construct and an #include
- mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
- templates ;-)
-
-
-
- All templates refer to a style located at
- http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet Privoxy
- and the source for it can be found and edited in the
- cgi-style.css template.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
-Requests
-
-
- &contacting;
-
-
-Privoxy Copyright, License and History
-
-
- ©right;
-
-
-
-License
-
- &license;
-
-History
-
- &history;
-
-Authors
-
- &p-authors;
-
-See Also
-
- &seealso;
-
-Appendix
-
-
-
-
-Regular Expressions
-
- Privoxy uses Perl-style regular
- expressions
in its PCRE and
-
- PCRS libraries.
-
-
-
- If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what regular
- expressions
are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
- introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
-
-
-
- Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
- run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
- match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
- strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
- characters, called meta-characters. The meta-characters
have
- special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
- Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
- dialect
of the regular expression language.
-
-
-
- To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
- characters when listing files with the dir command in DOS.
- *.* matches all filenames. The special
- character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
- more specific and use ? to match just individual
- characters. So dir file?.text
would match
- file1.txt
, file2.txt
, etc. We are pattern
- matching, using a similar technique to regular expressions
!
-
-
-
- Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
- powerful. There are many more special characters
and ways of
- building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
- and then some examples:
-
-
-
-
- . - Matches any single character, e.g. a
,
- A
, 4
, :
, or @
.
-
-
-
- ? - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
- times. Either/or.
-
-
-
- + - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
- times.
-
-
-
- * - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
- times.
-
-
-
- \ - The escape
character denotes that
- the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
- special characters (e.g. .
) needs to be taken literally and
- not as a special meta-character. Example: example\.com
, makes
- sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
- meta-character meaning of any single character).
-
-
-
- [ ] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
- any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, [0-9]
- matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
- this with +
to match any digit one of more times: [0-9]+
.
-
-
-
- ( ) - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
- or multiple sub-expressions.
-
-
-
- | - The bar
character works like an
- or
conditional statement. A match is successful if the
- sub-expression on either side of |
matches. As an example:
- /(this|that) example/
uses grouping and the bar character
- and would match either this example
or that
- example
, and nothing else.
-
-
- These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
- Privoxy , and is a long way from a definitive
- list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
- be more illuminating:
-
-
-
- /.*/banners/.* .
and *
to
- denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
- So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
- (.*
) another literal forward slash, the string
- banners
, another forward slash, and lastly another
- .*
. We are building
- a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
- directory named banners
in it. The .*
matches
- any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
- might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
- /eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif
, or just
- /banners/annoying.html
, or almost an infinite number of other
- possible combinations, just so it has banners
in the path
- somewhere.
-
-
-
- And now something a little more complex:
-
-
-
- /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/ /
), so we are
- building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
- .*
, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
- it matches our expression. The only true literal that must
- match our pattern is adv , together with
- the forward slashes. What comes after the adv
string is the
- interesting part.
-
-
-
- Remember the ?
means the preceding expression (either a
- literal character or anything grouped with (...)
in this case)
- can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
- ((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))
is optional, as are the
- individual sub-expressions: (er)
,
- (ing|ements?)
, and the s
. The |
- means or
. We have two of those. For instance,
- (ing|ements?)
, can expand to match either ing
- OR ements?
. What is being done here, is an
- attempt at matching as many variations of advertisement
, and
- similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just adv
,
- or advert
, or adverts
, or
- advertising
, or advertisement
, or
- advertisements
. You get the idea. But it would not match
- advertizements
(with a z
). We could fix that by
- changing our regular expression to:
- /.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/
, which would then match
- either spelling.
-
-
-
- /.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g) [ ]
can be matched. This is using 0-9
as a
- shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
- saying 0123456789
. So any digit matches. The +
- means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
- expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
- one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: (gif|jpe?g)
.
- This includes a |
, so this needs to match the expression on
- either side of that bar character also. A simple gif
on one side, and the other
- side will in turn match either jpeg
or jpg
,
- since the ?
means the letter e
is optional and
- can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
- match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
- string advert
, then one or more digits, and a .
- (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
- with \
), and lastly either gif
, or
- jpeg
, or jpg
. Some possible matches would
- include: //advert1.jpg
,
- /nasty/ads/advert1234.gif
,
- /banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg
. It would not match
- advert1.gif
(no leading slash), or
- /adverts232.jpg
(the expression does not include an
- s
), or /advert1.jsp
(jsp
is not
- in the expression anywhere).
-
-
-
- We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
- can understand the default Privoxy
- configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
- installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
- expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
- your own :/
-
-
-
- More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
- http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html
-
-
-
- For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
- in filters, please see the
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Privoxy's Internal Pages
-
-
- Since Privoxy proxies each requested
- web page, it is easy for Privoxy to
- trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
- Privoxy , and see how it is
- configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
- rules and other configuration options, and even turn
- Privoxy's filtering off, all with
- a web browser.
-
-
-
-
- The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
- to Privoxy . Of course,
- Privoxy must be running to access these. If
- not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
- necessary either.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy main page:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/
-
-
-
- There is a shortcut: http://p.p/ (But it
- doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
- sent through Privoxy )
-
-
-
-
-
- Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
- editing of actions files:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Show the source code version numbers:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/show-version
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Show the browser's request headers:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/show-request
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
- config file. When toggled off
, Privoxy
- continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
- place:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/toggle
-
-
-
- Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable
-
-
-
-
- http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
-
-
-
-
-Bookmarklets
-
- Below are some bookmarklets
to allow you to easily access a
- mini
version of some of Privoxy's
- special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
- equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
- JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
- clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
-
-
- To save them, right-click the link and choose Add to Favorites
- (IE) or Add Bookmark
(Netscape). You will get a warning that
- the bookmark may not be safe
- just click OK. Then you can run the
- Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
- you can put them on the Links
bar (IE) or the Personal
- Toolbar
(Netscape), and run them with a single click.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Enable
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Disable
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy- View Status
-
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy - Why?
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
- www.bookmarklets.com . They
- have more information about bookmarklets.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Chain of Events
-
- Let's take a quick look at how some of Privoxy's
- core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
- page is requested by your browser:
-
-
-
-
-
-
- First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
- the request to Privoxy , which will in turn,
- relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
- tests:
-
-
-
-
- Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI
- pages (e.g http://p.p/ ) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
-
-
-
-
- Next, Privoxy checks to see if the URL
- matches any +block
patterns. If
- so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
- +handle-as-image
- and
- +handle-as-empty-document
- are then checked, and if there is no match, an
- HTML BLOCKED
page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
- it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
- document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
- +set-image-blocker
- (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
-
-
-
-
- Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
- trust file, then that is done.
-
-
-
-
- If the URL pattern matches the +fast-redirects
action,
- it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
-
-
-
-
- Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
- of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. +hide-user-agent
,
- etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
- their parameters.
-
-
-
-
- Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
- page).
-
-
-
-
- First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
- things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
- filtered as determined by the
- +crunch-incoming-cookies
,
- +session-cookies-only
,
- and +downgrade-http-version
- actions.
-
-
-
-
- If any +filter
action
- or +deanimate-gifs
- action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
- read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
- default.filter and any other filter files) are
- processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
- they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
- are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
- setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
- Privoxy back to your browser.
-
-
- If neither a +filter
action
- or +deanimate-gifs
- matches, then Privoxy passes the raw data through
- to the client browser as it becomes available.
-
-
-
-
- As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
- reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
- source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
- frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
- separate request (this is easily viewable in Privoxy's
- logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
- complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
- secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
- differing set of actions is triggered.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
- request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
- Privoxy's core features only.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action
-
-
- The way Privoxy applies
- see just what Privoxy is
- doing. Especially, if something Privoxy is doing
- is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
- the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
-
-
-
- One quick test to see if Privoxy is causing a problem
- or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
- step. See config file settings, and may need to be
- turned on
.)
-
-
- Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
- customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
- defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
- about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
- configuration issue.
-
-
-
- Privoxy also provides the
- http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
- page that can show us very specifically how actions
- are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
-
-
-
- First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
- Privoxy will tell us
- how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
- help with filtering effects (i.e. the +filter
action) from
- one of the filter files since this is handled very
- differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
- URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
- such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
- you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
- -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
- will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's View
- Page Source
option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
- URL.
-
-
-
- Let's try an example, google.com ,
- and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
- configuration may vary):
-
-
-
-
- Matches for http://www.google.com:
-
- In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
-
- {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
- +deanimate-gifs {last}
- +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
- +filter {refresh-tags}
- +filter {img-reorder}
- +filter {banners-by-size}
- +filter {webbugs}
- +filter {jumping-windows}
- +filter {ie-exploits}
- +hide-from-header {block}
- +hide-referrer {forge}
- +session-cookies-only
- +set-image-blocker {pattern}
-/
-
- { -session-cookies-only }
- .google.com
-
- { -fast-redirects }
- .google.com
-
-In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
-(no matches in this file)
-
-
-
-
- This is telling us how we have defined our
- actions
, and
- which ones match for our test case, google.com
.
- Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
- the + sign denotes on
. -
- denotes off
. So some are on
here, but many
- are off
. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
- end result, depending on our configuration directives.
-
-
- The first listing
- is for our default.action file. The large, multi-line
- listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
- settings. If you look at your actions
file, this would be the
- section just below the aliases
section near the top. This
- will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
- of the listing -- /
.
-
-
-
- But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
- rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
- would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
- matches for .google.com
. The first is negating our previous
- cookie setting, which was for +session-cookies-only
- (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
- least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
- off any +fast-redirects
- action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
- dot here -- .google.com
. This will match any hosts and
- sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
- www.google.com
or mail.google.com
. But it would not
- match www.google.de
! So, apparently, we have these two actions
- defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
- part of our default.action file, and
- google.com
is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
-
-
-
- Then, for our user.action file, we again have no hits.
- So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
- configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
- previously processed files, such as default.action .
- user.action typically has the last word. This is the
- best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
-
-
-
- And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
- Privoxy is applying all its actions
- to google.com
:
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Final results:
-
- -add-header
- -block
- +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
- -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
- -content-type-overwrite
- -crunch-client-header
- -crunch-if-none-match
- -crunch-incoming-cookies
- -crunch-outgoing-cookies
- -crunch-server-header
- +deanimate-gifs {last}
- -downgrade-http-version
- -fast-redirects
- -filter {js-events}
- -filter {content-cookies}
- -filter {all-popups}
- -filter {banners-by-link}
- -filter {tiny-textforms}
- -filter {frameset-borders}
- -filter {demoronizer}
- -filter {shockwave-flash}
- -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
- -filter {fun}
- -filter {crude-parental}
- -filter {site-specifics}
- -filter {js-annoyances}
- -filter {html-annoyances}
- +filter {refresh-tags}
- -filter {unsolicited-popups}
- +filter {img-reorder}
- +filter {banners-by-size}
- +filter {webbugs}
- +filter {jumping-windows}
- +filter {ie-exploits}
- -filter {google}
- -filter {yahoo}
- -filter {msn}
- -filter {blogspot}
- -filter {no-ping}
- -force-text-mode
- -handle-as-empty-document
- -handle-as-image
- -hide-accept-language
- -hide-content-disposition
- +hide-from-header {block}
- -hide-if-modified-since
- +hide-referrer {forge}
- -hide-user-agent
- -limit-connect
- -overwrite-last-modified
- -prevent-compression
- -redirect
- -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
- -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
- -session-cookies-only
- +set-image-blocker {pattern}
-
-
-
- Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
- fast-redirects
and session-cookies-only
,
- which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
- and thus show in the Final Results
.
-
-
-
- Now another example, ad.doubleclick.net
:
-
-
-
-
-
- { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
- ad*.
-
- { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
- .ad.
-
- { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
- .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
-
-
-
-
- We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
- matched three different times. Two +block{}
sections,
- and a +block{} +handle-as-image
,
- which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
- +block-as-image
. (Aliases
are defined in
- the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
- than one action.)
-
-
-
- Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
- image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
- would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
- though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
- URL to be invisible, it should be defined as ad.doubleclick.net
- is done here -- as both a +block{}
- and an
- +handle-as-image
.
- The custom alias +block-as-image
just
- simplifies the process and make it more readable.
-
-
-
- One last example. Let's try http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/
.
- This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
-
-
-
-
-
- Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
-
- In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
-
- {-add-header
- -block
- +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
- -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
- -content-type-overwrite
- -crunch-client-header
- -crunch-if-none-match
- -crunch-incoming-cookies
- -crunch-outgoing-cookies
- -crunch-server-header
- +deanimate-gifs
- -downgrade-http-version
- +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
- -filter {js-events}
- -filter {content-cookies}
- -filter {all-popups}
- -filter {banners-by-link}
- -filter {tiny-textforms}
- -filter {frameset-borders}
- -filter {demoronizer}
- -filter {shockwave-flash}
- -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
- -filter {fun}
- -filter {crude-parental}
- -filter {site-specifics}
- -filter {js-annoyances}
- -filter {html-annoyances}
- +filter {refresh-tags}
- -filter {unsolicited-popups}
- +filter {img-reorder}
- +filter {banners-by-size}
- +filter {webbugs}
- +filter {jumping-windows}
- +filter {ie-exploits}
- -filter {google}
- -filter {yahoo}
- -filter {msn}
- -filter {blogspot}
- -filter {no-ping}
- -force-text-mode
- -handle-as-empty-document
- -handle-as-image
- -hide-accept-language
- -hide-content-disposition
- +hide-from-header{block}
- +hide-referer{forge}
- -hide-user-agent
- -overwrite-last-modified
- +prevent-compression
- -redirect
- -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
- -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
- +session-cookies-only
- +set-image-blocker{blank} }
- /
-
- { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
- /ads
-
-
-
-
- Ooops, the /adsl/
is matching /ads
in our
- configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
- blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
- the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
- to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
- We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
- user.action file) that explicitly
- un blocks (
- {-block}
) paths with
- adsl
in them (remember, last match in the configuration
- wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
-
-
-
-
-
- { -block }
- /adsl
-
-
-
-
- Now the page displays ;-)
- Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
- your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
- using Shift+Reload .
-
-
-
- But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
- we did with:
-
-
-
-
-
- { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
- /ads
-
-
-
-
- That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
- was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
- rules in the first section of default.action is causing
- the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
- error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
- +filter
actions.
- These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
- Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
- +filter
:
-
-
-
-
-
- { shop }
- .quietpc.com
- .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
- .jungle.com
- .scan.co.uk
- .forbes.com
-
-
-
-
- { shop }
is an alias
that expands to
- { -filter -session-cookies-only }
.
- Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
-
-
-
-
-
-
- { -filter }
- # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
- .forbes.com
- developer.ibm.com
- localhost
-
-
-
-
- This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
- put in user.action , for local site
- exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
- the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
- automatically in the scope of the action.
-
-
-
- Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
-+filter{banners-by-size}
- rule, which assumes
- that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
- most of the time since these tend to be standardized).
-
-
-
- { fragile }
is an alias that disables most
- actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
- last resort for problem sites.
-
-
-
-
- { fragile }
- # Handle with care: easy to break
- mail.google.
- mybank.example.com
-
-
-
-
- Remember to flush caches! Note that the
- mail.google reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
- .com
). This will effectively match any TLD with
- google in it, such as mail.google.de. ,
- just as an example.
-
-
- If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
- actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
-
-
-
-
-
+Privoxy's Template Files
+
+ All Privoxy built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
+ 404 - No Such Domain
+ error pageBLOCKED
+ pageweb-based
+ user interface , are generated from templates .
+ (Privoxy must be running for the above links to work as
+ intended.)
+
- Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
- Updated hard-coded copyright dates
+
+ These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the templates . On Unixish platforms,
+ this is typically
+ /etc/privoxy/templates/
- Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
- Add new section on Predefined Filters.
+
+ The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
+ or exports), which Privoxy fills at run time. It
+ is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
+ to customize them. (Not recommended for the casual
+ user ). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
+ the config setting
+
+ Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
+ with # are ignored when the templates are filled in.
+
- Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
- More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
+
+ The place-holders are of the form @name@ , and you will
+ find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
+ in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
+ always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
+ code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
+
- Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
- Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
- causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
- it was a comment).
+
+ A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
+ blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
+ for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
+ our user interface (CGI) pages when Privoxy
+ is in an alpha or beta development stage:
+
- Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
- s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
+
+
+<!-- @if-unstable-start -->
- Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
- Added documentation for new chroot option
+ ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
- Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
- Adapted to the new filters
+<!-- if-unstable-end@ -->
+
- Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
- Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
- Add faq on cookies.
+
+ If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
+ @if-unstable-start and if-unstable-end@
+ will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
+
- Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
- Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
+
+ <!-- -->
+
- Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
- Add demoronizer to filter section.
+
+ There's also an if-then-else construct and an #include
+ mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
+ templates ;-)
+
- Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
- s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
+
+ All templates refer to a style located at
+ http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet Privoxy
+ and the source for it can be found and edited in the
+ cgi-style.css template.
+
- Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
- Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
- cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
+
- Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
- More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
+
- Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
- Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
- CGIs.
- Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
- Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
- Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
- Update to Mac OS X startup script name
+
- Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
- Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
+Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
+Requests
- Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
- Nits re: actions file download
+
+ &contacting;
+
- Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
- Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
+Privoxy Copyright, License and History
- Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
+
+ ©right;
+
- Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
+
+License
+
+ &license;
+
+History
+
+ &history;
+
+Authors
+
+ &p-authors;
+
+See Also
+
+ &seealso;
+
+ from s since the new doc CSS
- renders them red (bad in TOC).
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix
- Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
- Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
- Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
- Added Security hint
+
+
+Regular Expressions
+
+ Privoxy uses Perl-style regular
+ expressions
in its PCRE and
+
+ PCRS libraries.
+
- Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
- -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
- -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
+
+ If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what regular
+ expressions
are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
+ introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
+
- Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
- - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
- - Small changes to Regex appendix
- - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
+
+ Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
+ run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
+ match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
+ strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
+ characters, called meta-characters. The meta-characters
have
+ special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
+ Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
+ dialect
of the regular expression language.
+
- Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
- Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
+
+ To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
+ characters when listing files with the dir command in DOS.
+ *.* matches all filenames. The special
+ character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
+ more specific and use ? to match just individual
+ characters. So dir file?.text
would match
+ file1.txt
, file2.txt
, etc. We are pattern
+ matching, using a similar technique to regular expressions
!
+
- Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
- Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
+
+ Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
+ powerful. There are many more special characters
and ways of
+ building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
+ and then some examples:
+
- Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
- More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
+
+
+ . - Matches any single character, e.g. a
,
+ A
, 4
, :
, or @
.
+
+
+
+ ? - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
+ times. Either/or.
+
+
+
+ + - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
+ times.
+
+
+
+ * - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
+ times.
+
+
+
+ \ - The escape
character denotes that
+ the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
+ special characters (e.g. .
) needs to be taken literally and
+ not as a special meta-character. Example: example\.com
, makes
+ sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
+ meta-character meaning of any single character).
+
+
+
+ [ ] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
+ any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, [0-9]
+ matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
+ this with +
to match any digit one of more times: [0-9]+
.
+
+
+
+ ( ) - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
+ or multiple sub-expressions.
+
+
+
+ | - The bar
character works like an
+ or
conditional statement. A match is successful if the
+ sub-expression on either side of |
matches. As an example:
+ /(this|that) example/
uses grouping and the bar character
+ and would match either this example
or that
+ example
, and nothing else.
+
+
+ These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
+ Privoxy , and is a long way from a definitive
+ list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
+ be more illuminating:
+
- Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
- Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
+
+ /.*/banners/.* .
and *
to
+ denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
+ So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
+ (.*
) another literal forward slash, the string
+ banners
, another forward slash, and lastly another
+ .*
. We are building
+ a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
+ directory named banners
in it. The .*
matches
+ any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
+ might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
+ /eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif
, or just
+ /banners/annoying.html
, or almost an infinite number of other
+ possible combinations, just so it has banners
in the path
+ somewhere.
+
- Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
- bumped version
+
+ And now something a little more complex:
+
- Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
- -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
- -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
+
+ /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/ /
), so we are
+ building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
+ .*
, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
+ it matches our expression. The only true literal that must
+ match our pattern is adv , together with
+ the forward slashes. What comes after the adv
string is the
+ interesting part.
+
- Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
- Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
+
+ Remember the ?
means the preceding expression (either a
+ literal character or anything grouped with (...)
in this case)
+ can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
+ ((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))
is optional, as are the
+ individual sub-expressions: (er)
,
+ (ing|ements?)
, and the s
. The |
+ means or
. We have two of those. For instance,
+ (ing|ements?)
, can expand to match either ing
+ OR ements?
. What is being done here, is an
+ attempt at matching as many variations of advertisement
, and
+ similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just adv
,
+ or advert
, or adverts
, or
+ advertising
, or advertisement
, or
+ advertisements
. You get the idea. But it would not match
+ advertizements
(with a z
). We could fix that by
+ changing our regular expression to:
+ /.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/
, which would then match
+ either spelling.
+
- Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
- Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
- Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
+
+ /.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g) [ ]
can be matched. This is using 0-9
as a
+ shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
+ saying 0123456789
. So any digit matches. The +
+ means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
+ expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
+ one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: (gif|jpe?g)
.
+ This includes a |
, so this needs to match the expression on
+ either side of that bar character also. A simple gif
on one side, and the other
+ side will in turn match either jpeg
or jpg
,
+ since the ?
means the letter e
is optional and
+ can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
+ match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
+ string advert
, then one or more digits, and a .
+ (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
+ with \
), and lastly either gif
, or
+ jpeg
, or jpg
. Some possible matches would
+ include: //advert1.jpg
,
+ /nasty/ads/advert1234.gif
,
+ /banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg
. It would not match
+ advert1.gif
(no leading slash), or
+ /adverts232.jpg
(the expression does not include an
+ s
), or /advert1.jsp
(jsp
is not
+ in the expression anywhere).
+
- Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
- Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
+
+ We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
+ can understand the default Privoxy
+ configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
+ installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
+ expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
+ your own :/
+
- Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
- more structure in starting section
+
+ More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
+ http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html
+
- Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
- This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
- will probably break links elsewhere :(
+
+ For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
+ in filters, please see the
+
- Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
- -Rewrite of Actions File example.
- -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
+
- Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
- -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
- -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
- Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
- bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
+
+
+Privoxy's Internal Pages
- Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
- -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
- -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
+
+ Since Privoxy proxies each requested
+ web page, it is easy for Privoxy to
+ trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
+ Privoxy , and see how it is
+ configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
+ rules and other configuration options, and even turn
+ Privoxy's filtering off, all with
+ a web browser.
- Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
- More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
- Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
+
- Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
- Add 'Chain of Events' section.
+
+ The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
+ to Privoxy . Of course,
+ Privoxy must be running to access these. If
+ not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
+ necessary either.
+
- Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
- Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
+
+
- Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
- Added hint for startup on Red Hat
+
+
+ Privoxy main page:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/
+
+
+
+ There is a shortcut: http://p.p/ (But it
+ doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
+ sent through Privoxy )
+
+
- Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
- Add AmigaOS install stuff.
+
+
+ Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
+ editing of actions files:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
+
+
+
- Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
- Updated Mac OS X installation section
- Added a few English tweaks here an there
+
+
+ Show the source code version numbers:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/show-version
+
+
+
- Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
- Re-write actions section.
+
+
+ Show the browser's request headers:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/show-request
+
+
+
- Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
- Fix ugly typo (mine).
+
+
+ Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
+
+
+
- Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
- Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
+
+
+ Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
+ config file. When toggled off
, Privoxy
+ continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
+ place:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/toggle
+
+
+
+ Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable
+
+
+
+
+ http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable
+
+
+
- Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
- Added RPM install detail
+
+
- Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
- Cosmetics
+
+ These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
- Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
- Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
+
- Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
- Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
+
+Bookmarklets
+
+ Below are some bookmarklets
to allow you to easily access a
+ mini
version of some of Privoxy's
+ special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
+ equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
+ JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
+ clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
+
+
+ To save them, right-click the link and choose Add to Favorites
+ (IE) or Add Bookmark
(Netscape). You will get a warning that
+ the bookmark may not be safe
- just click OK. Then you can run the
+ Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
+ you can put them on the Links
bar (IE) or the Personal
+ Toolbar
(Netscape), and run them with a single click.
+
- Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
- Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
+
+
- Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
- Proofreading part 2
+
+
+ Privoxy - Enable
+
+
- Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
- Proofreading, part one
+
+
+ Privoxy - Disable
+
+
- Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
- -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
- -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
+
+
+ Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
+
+
- Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
- Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
+
+
+ Privoxy- View Status
+
+
+
+
+
+ Privoxy - Why?
+
+
+
+
- Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
- Add small section on submitting actions.
+
+ Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
+ www.bookmarklets.com . They
+ have more information about bookmarklets.
+
- Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
- generated
- Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
- Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
+
- Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
- Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
+
- Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
- ?
- Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
- -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
- -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
- -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
- -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
+
+
+Chain of Events
+
+ Let's take a quick look at how some of Privoxy's
+ core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
+ page is requested by your browser:
+
- Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
- consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
+
+
+
+
+ First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
+ the request to Privoxy , which will in turn,
+ relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
+ tests:
+
+
+
+
+ Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI
+ pages (e.g http://p.p/ ) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
+
+
+
+
+ Next, Privoxy checks to see if the URL
+ matches any +block
patterns. If
+ so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
+ +handle-as-image
+ and
+ +handle-as-empty-document
+ are then checked, and if there is no match, an
+ HTML BLOCKED
page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
+ it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
+ document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
+ +set-image-blocker
+ (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
+
+
+
+
+ Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
+ trust file, then that is done.
+
+
+
+
+ If the URL pattern matches the +fast-redirects
action,
+ it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
+
+
+
+
+ Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
+ of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. +hide-user-agent
,
+ etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
+ their parameters.
+
+
+
+
+ Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
+ page).
+
+
+
+
+ First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
+ things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
+ filtered as determined by the
+ +crunch-incoming-cookies
,
+ +session-cookies-only
,
+ and +downgrade-http-version
+ actions.
+
+
+
+
+ If any +filter
action
+ or +deanimate-gifs
+ action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
+ read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
+ default.filter and any other filter files) are
+ processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
+ they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
+ are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
+ setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
+ Privoxy back to your browser.
+
+
+ If neither a +filter
action
+ or +deanimate-gifs
+ matches, then Privoxy passes the raw data through
+ to the client browser as it becomes available.
+
+
+
+
+ As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
+ reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
+ source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
+ frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
+ separate request (this is easily viewable in Privoxy's
+ logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
+ complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
+ secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
+ differing set of actions is triggered.
+
+
- Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
- more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
+
+
+
+ NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
+ request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
+ Privoxy's core features only.
+
- Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
- Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
- based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
- definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
- eventually be set by Makefile.
- More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
+
- Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
- enhance squid section due to user suggestion
- Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
- A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
+
+
+Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action
- Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
- Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
+
+ The way Privoxy applies
+ see just what Privoxy is
+ doing. Especially, if something Privoxy is doing
+ is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
+ the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
+
- Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
- - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
- - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
- - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
+
+ One quick test to see if Privoxy is causing a problem
+ or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
+ step. See config file settings, and may need to be
+ turned on
.)
+
+
+ Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
+ customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
+ defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
+ about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
+ configuration issue.
+
- Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
- Minor update.
+
+ Privoxy also provides the
+ http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
+ page that can show us very specifically how actions
+ are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
+
- Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
- Added more to Anatomy section.
+
+ First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
+ Privoxy will tell us
+ how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
+ help with filtering effects (i.e. the +filter
action) from
+ one of the filter files since this is handled very
+ differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
+ URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
+ such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
+ you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
+ -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
+ will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's View
+ Page Source
option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
+ URL.
+
- Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
- Touch up intro for new name.
+
+ Let's try an example, google.com ,
+ and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
+ configuration may vary):
+
- Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
- we have a new homepage!
+
+
+ Matches for http://www.google.com:
- Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
- A few minor catch ups with name change.
+ In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
- Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
- configure needs to be generated.
+ {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
+ +deanimate-gifs {last}
+ +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
+ +filter {refresh-tags}
+ +filter {img-reorder}
+ +filter {banners-by-size}
+ +filter {webbugs}
+ +filter {jumping-windows}
+ +filter {ie-exploits}
+ +hide-from-header {block}
+ +hide-referrer {forge}
+ +session-cookies-only
+ +set-image-blocker {pattern}
+/
- Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
- we are too lazy to make a block-built
- privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
+ { -session-cookies-only }
+ .google.com
- Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
- name change related issue.
+ { -fast-redirects }
+ .google.com
- Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
- name change. changed filenames.
+In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
+(no matches in this file)
+
+
- Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
- name change
+
+ This is telling us how we have defined our
+ actions
, and
+ which ones match for our test case, google.com
.
+ Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
+ the + sign denotes on
. -
+ denotes off
. So some are on
here, but many
+ are off
. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
+ end result, depending on our configuration directives.
+
+
+ The first listing
+ is for our default.action file. The large, multi-line
+ listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
+ settings. If you look at your actions
file, this would be the
+ section just below the aliases
section near the top. This
+ will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
+ of the listing -- /
.
+
- Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
- renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
- fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
- "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
- comments and remarks to history untouched.
+
+ But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
+ rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
+ would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
+ matches for .google.com
. The first is negating our previous
+ cookie setting, which was for +session-cookies-only
+ (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
+ least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
+ off any +fast-redirects
+ action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
+ dot here -- .google.com
. This will match any hosts and
+ sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
+ www.google.com
or mail.google.com
. But it would not
+ match www.google.de
! So, apparently, we have these two actions
+ defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
+ part of our default.action file, and
+ google.com
is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
+
- Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
- Touch up.
+
+ Then, for our user.action file, we again have no hits.
+ So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
+ configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
+ previously processed files, such as default.action .
+ user.action typically has the last word. This is the
+ best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
+
- Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
- New section in Appendix.
+
+ And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
+ Privoxy is applying all its actions
+ to google.com
:
- Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
- Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
+
- Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
- correct feedback channels
+
+
- Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
- Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
+ Final results:
- Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
- more distros
+ -add-header
+ -block
+ +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
+ -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
+ -content-type-overwrite
+ -crunch-client-header
+ -crunch-if-none-match
+ -crunch-incoming-cookies
+ -crunch-outgoing-cookies
+ -crunch-server-header
+ +deanimate-gifs {last}
+ -downgrade-http-version
+ -fast-redirects
+ -filter {js-events}
+ -filter {content-cookies}
+ -filter {all-popups}
+ -filter {banners-by-link}
+ -filter {tiny-textforms}
+ -filter {frameset-borders}
+ -filter {demoronizer}
+ -filter {shockwave-flash}
+ -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
+ -filter {fun}
+ -filter {crude-parental}
+ -filter {site-specifics}
+ -filter {js-annoyances}
+ -filter {html-annoyances}
+ +filter {refresh-tags}
+ -filter {unsolicited-popups}
+ +filter {img-reorder}
+ +filter {banners-by-size}
+ +filter {webbugs}
+ +filter {jumping-windows}
+ +filter {ie-exploits}
+ -filter {google}
+ -filter {yahoo}
+ -filter {msn}
+ -filter {blogspot}
+ -filter {no-ping}
+ -force-text-mode
+ -handle-as-empty-document
+ -handle-as-image
+ -hide-accept-language
+ -hide-content-disposition
+ +hide-from-header {block}
+ -hide-if-modified-since
+ +hide-referrer {forge}
+ -hide-user-agent
+ -limit-connect
+ -overwrite-last-modified
+ -prevent-compression
+ -redirect
+ -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
+ -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
+ -session-cookies-only
+ +set-image-blocker {pattern}
+
- Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
- New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
+
+ Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
+ fast-redirects
and session-cookies-only
,
+ which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
+ and thus show in the Final Results
.
+
- Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
- Added imageblock{pattern}.
+
+ Now another example, ad.doubleclick.net
:
+
- Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
- looks better
+
+
- Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
- Fix a few markup problems for jade.
+ { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
+ ad*.
- Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
- provide correct feedback channels
+ { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
+ .ad.
- Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
- Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
+ { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
+ .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
+
+
- Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
- Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
+
+ We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
+ matched three different times. Two +block{}
sections,
+ and a +block{} +handle-as-image
,
+ which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
+ +block-as-image
. (Aliases
are defined in
+ the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
+ than one action.)
+
- Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
- jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
+
+ Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
+ image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
+ would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
+ though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
+ URL to be invisible, it should be defined as ad.doubleclick.net
+ is done here -- as both a +block{}
+ and an
+ +handle-as-image
.
+ The custom alias +block-as-image
just
+ simplifies the process and make it more readable.
+
- Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
- Add new - - user option.
+
+ One last example. Let's try http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/
.
+ This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
+
- Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
- Added section on command line options.
+
+
- Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
- Changed default port to 8118
+ Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
- Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
- Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
+ In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ]
- Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
- AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
- AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
- command line.
+ {-add-header
+ -block
+ +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
+ -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
+ -content-type-overwrite
+ -crunch-client-header
+ -crunch-if-none-match
+ -crunch-incoming-cookies
+ -crunch-outgoing-cookies
+ -crunch-server-header
+ +deanimate-gifs
+ -downgrade-http-version
+ +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
+ -filter {js-events}
+ -filter {content-cookies}
+ -filter {all-popups}
+ -filter {banners-by-link}
+ -filter {tiny-textforms}
+ -filter {frameset-borders}
+ -filter {demoronizer}
+ -filter {shockwave-flash}
+ -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
+ -filter {fun}
+ -filter {crude-parental}
+ -filter {site-specifics}
+ -filter {js-annoyances}
+ -filter {html-annoyances}
+ +filter {refresh-tags}
+ -filter {unsolicited-popups}
+ +filter {img-reorder}
+ +filter {banners-by-size}
+ +filter {webbugs}
+ +filter {jumping-windows}
+ +filter {ie-exploits}
+ -filter {google}
+ -filter {yahoo}
+ -filter {msn}
+ -filter {blogspot}
+ -filter {no-ping}
+ -force-text-mode
+ -handle-as-empty-document
+ -handle-as-image
+ -hide-accept-language
+ -hide-content-disposition
+ +hide-from-header{block}
+ +hide-referer{forge}
+ -hide-user-agent
+ -overwrite-last-modified
+ +prevent-compression
+ -redirect
+ -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
+ -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
+ +session-cookies-only
+ +set-image-blocker{blank} }
+ /
- Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
- Just tweaking
+ { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
+ /ads
+
+
- Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
- Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
+
+ Ooops, the /adsl/
is matching /ads
in our
+ configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
+ blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
+ the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
+ to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
+ We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
+ user.action file) that explicitly
+ un blocks (
+ {-block}
) paths with
+ adsl
in them (remember, last match in the configuration
+ wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
+
- Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
- Update OS/2 build section
+
+
- Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
- Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
- will work - no other changes are needed.
+ { -block }
+ /adsl
+
+
- Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
- Added a very short section on Templates
+
+ Now the page displays ;-)
+ Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
+ your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
+ using Shift+Reload .
+
- Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
- Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
+
+ But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
+ we did with:
+
- Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
- Touch ups for *.action files.
+
+
- Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
- Fix typo.
+ { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
+ /ads
+
+
- Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
- Updates for recent changes.
+
+ That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
+ was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
+ rules in the first section of default.action is causing
+ the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
+ error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
+ +filter
actions.
+ These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
+ Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
+ +filter
:
+
- Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
- Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
+
+
- Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
- Correct 2 minor errors
+ { shop }
+ .quietpc.com
+ .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
+ .jungle.com
+ .scan.co.uk
+ .forbes.com
+
+
- Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
- *** empty log message ***
+
+ { shop }
is an alias
that expands to
+ { -filter -session-cookies-only }
.
+ Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
- Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
- Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
+
- Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
- wrong url in documentation
+
+
- Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
- Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
+ { -filter }
+ # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
+ .forbes.com
+ developer.ibm.com
+ localhost
+
+
- Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
- Very minor changes.
+
+ This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
+ put in user.action , for local site
+ exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
+ the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
+ automatically in the scope of the action.
+
- Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
- Ditto :/
+
+ Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
++filter{banners-by-size}
+ rule, which assumes
+ that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
+ most of the time since these tend to be standardized).
+
- Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
- Ditto.
+
+ { fragile }
is an alias that disables most
+ actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
+ last resort for problem sites.
+
+
+
- Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
- A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
+ { fragile }
+ # Handle with care: easy to break
+ mail.google.
+ mybank.example.com
+
- Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
- Some additions, and re-arranging.
- Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
- Diddling.
+
+ Remember to flush caches! Note that the
+ mail.google reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
+ .com
). This will effectively match any TLD with
+ google in it, such as mail.google.de. ,
+ just as an example.
+
+
+ If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
+ actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
+
- Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
- Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
+
- Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
- cosmetics
+
- Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
- source files for junkbuster documentation
+