Privoxy 3.0.16 is a stable release. - The changes since 3.0.15 beta are:
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. -
Log the crunch reason before trying to write to the client. - The log is easier to read that way. -
Several log messages about client connections also mention - the socket number. -
handle-as-empty-document no longer depends on the image blocking - code being enabled. -
Privoxy-Log-Parser is roughly 40% faster in highlighting mode. -
uagen, a Firefox User-Agent generator for Privoxy and Mozilla - browsers has been imported and is available in the tarball's - tools directory. -
The scripts in the tools directory treat unknown parameters - as fatal errors. -
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. -
A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier - versions of Privoxy:
The recommended way to upgrade Privoxy is to backup your old - configuration files, install the new ones, verify that Privoxy - is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using - diff and maybe patch. -
There are a number of new features in each Privoxy 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 - Privoxy 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 debug section - of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose - logging until you verified that the new Privoxy version is working - as expected. -
Three other config file settings are now off by default: - enable-remote-toggle, - enable-remote-http-toggle, - and enable-edit-actions. - If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and - be aware of the security issues involved. -
Privoxy 3.0.27 stable scales better in multi-user environments and brings a + couple of tuning directives.
+General improvements:
+Add a receive-buffer-size directive which can be used to set the size of the previously statically + allocated buffer in handle_established_connection(). Increasing the buffer size increases Privoxy's memory + usage but can lower the number of context switches and thereby reduce the CPU usage and potentially + increase the throughput. This is mostly relevant for fast network connections and large downloads that + don't require filtering. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Add a listen-backlog directive which specifies the backlog value passed to listen(). Sponsored by: + Robert Klemme
+Add an enable-accept-filter directive which allows to toggle accept filter support at run time when + compiled with FEATURE_ACCEPT_FILTER support. It makes testing more convenient and now that it's optional we + can emit an error message if enabling the accept filter fails. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Add a delay-response{} action. This is useful to tar pit JavaScript requests that are endlessly retried + in case of blocks. It can also be used to simulate a slow Internet connection. Sponsored by: Robert + Klemme
+Add a 'trusted-cgi-referrer' directive. It allows to configure another page or site that can be used to + reach sensitive CGI resources. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Add a --fuzz mode which exposes Privoxy internals to input from files or stdout. Mainly tested with + American Fuzzy Lop. For details see: https://www.fabiankeil.de/talks/fuzzing-on-freebsd/ This work was + partially funded with donations and done as part of the Privoxy month in 2015.
+Consistently use the U(ngreedy) flag in the 'img-reorder' filter.
+listen_loop(): Reuse a single thread attribute object The object doesn't change and creating a new one + for every thread is a waste of (CPU) time. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Free csp resources in the thread that belongs to the csp instead of the main thread which has enough on + its plate already. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Improve 'socket timeout reached' message. Log the timeout that was triggered and downgrade the log level + to LOG_LEVEL_CONNECT to reduce the log noise with common debug settings. The timeout isn't necessary the + result of an error and usually merely indicates that Privoxy's socket timeout is lower than the relevant + timeouts used by client and server. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Explicitly taint the server socket in case of CONNECT requests. This doesn't fix any known problems, but + makes some log messages less confusing.
+Let write_pid_file() terminate if the pid file can't be opened. Logging the issue at info level is + unlikely to help.
+log_error(): Reduce the mutex-protected area by not using a heap-allocated buffer that is shared between + all threads. This increases performance and reduces the latency with verbose debug settings and multiple + concurrent connections. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Let zalloc() use calloc() if it's available. In some situations using calloc() can be faster than + malloc() + memset() and it should never be slower. In the real world the impact of this change is not + expected to be noticeable. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Never use select() when poll() is available. On most platforms select() is limited by FD_SETSIZE while + poll() is not. This was a scaling issue for multi-user setups. Using poll() has no downside other than the + usual risk that code modifications may introduce new bugs that have yet to be found and fixed. At least in + theory this commit could also reduce the latency when there are lots of connections and select() would use + "bit fields in arrays of integers" to store file descriptors. Another side effect is that Privoxy no longer + has to stop monitoring the client sockets when pipelined requests are waiting but can't be read yet. This + code keeps the select()-based code behind ifdefs for now but hopefully it can be removed soonish to make + the code more readable. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Add a 'reproducible-tarball-dist' target. It's currently separate from the "tarball-dist" target because + it requires a tar implementation with mtree spec support. It's far from being perfect and does not enforce + a reproducible mode, but it's better than nothing.
+Use arc4random() if it's available. While Privoxy doesn't need high quality pseudo-random numbers + there's no reason not to use them when we can and this silences a warning emitted by code checkers that + can't tell whether or not the quality matters.
+Show the FEATURE_EXTERNAL_FILTERS status on the status page. Better late than never. Previously a couple + of tests weren't executed as Privoxy-Regression-Test couldn't detect that the FEATURE_EXTERNAL_FILTERS + dependency was satisfied.
+Ditch FEATURE_IMAGE_DETECT_MSIE. It's an obsolete workaround we inherited from Junkbuster and was + already disabled by default. Users that feel the urge to work around issues with image requests coming from + an Internet Explorer version from more than 15 years ago can still do this using tags.
+Consistently use strdup_or_die() instead of strdup() in cases where allocation failures aren't expected. + Using strdup_or_die() allows to remove a couple of explicit error checks which slightly reduces the size of + the binary.
+Insert a refresh tag into the /client-tags CGI page when serving it while a client-specific tag is + temporarily enabled. This makes it less likely that the user ends up looking at tag state that is out of + date.
+Use absolute URLs in the client-tag forms. It's more consistent with the rest of the CGI page URLs and + makes it more convenient to copy the forms to external pages.
+cgi_error_disabled(): Use status code 403 and an appropriate response line
+Use a dedicated CGI handler to deal with tag-toggle requests As a result the /client-tags page is now + safe to reach without trusted Referer header which makes bookmarking or linking to it more convenient. + Finally, refreshing the /client-tags page to show the current state can no longer unintentionally repeat + the previous toggle request.
+Don't add a "Connection" header for CONNECT requests. Explicitly sending "Connection: close" is not + necessary and apparently it causes problems with some forwarding proxies that will close the connection + prematurely. Reported by Marc Thomas.
+Fix compiler warnings.
+Bug fixes:
+rfc2553_connect_to(): Properly detect and log when poll() reached the time out. Previously this was + logged as: Could not connect to [...]: No error: 0. which isn't very helpful. Sponsored by: Robert + Klemme
+add_tag_for_client(): Set time_to_live properly. Previously the time_to_live was always set for the + first tag. Attempts to temporarily enable a tag would result in enabling it permanently unless no tag was + enabled already.
+Revert r1.165 which didn't perform as advertised. While the idea was to use "https:// when creating + links for the user manual on the website", the actual effect was to use "https://" when Privoxy was + supposed to serve the user manual itself. Reported by Yossi Zahn on Privoxy-devel@.
+socks5_connect(): Fail in case of unsupported address types. Previously they would not be detected right + away and Privoxy would fail later on with an error message that didn't make it obvious that the problem was + socks-related. So far, no such problems have actually been reported.
+socks5_connect(): Properly deal with socks replies that contain IPv6 addresses. Previously parts of the + reply were left unread and later on treated as invalid HTTP response data. Fixes #904 reported by Danny + Goossen who also provided the initial version of this patch.
+Action file improvements:
+Unblock 'msdn.microsoft.com/'. It (presumably) isn't used to serve the kind of ads Privoxy should block + by default but happens to serve lots of pages with URLs that are likely to result in false positives. + Reported by bugreporter1694 in AF#939.
+Disable gif deanimation for requests tagged with CSS-REQUEST. The action will ignore content that isn't + considered text anyway and explicitly disabling it makes this more obvious if "action" debugging (debug + 65536) is enabled while "gif deanimation" debugging (debug 256) isn't.
+Explicitly disable HTML filters for requests with CSS-REQUEST tag. The filters are unlikely to break CSS + files but executing them without (intentionally) getting any hits is a waste of cpu time and makes the log + more noisy when running with "debug 64".
+Unblock 'adventofcode.com/'. Reported by Clint Adams in Debian bug #848211. Fixes Roland's AF#937.
+Unblock 'adlibris.com'. Reported by Wyrex in #935
+Unblock .golang.org/
+Add fast-redirects exception for '.youtube.com/.*origin=http'
+Privoxy-Log-Parser:
+Don't gather host and resource statistics if they aren't requested. While the performance impact seems + negligible this significantly reduces the memory usage if there are lots of requests.
+Bump version as the behaviour (slightly) changed.
+Count connection failures as well in statistics mode. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Count connection timeouts as well in statistics mode. Sponsored by: Robert Klemme
+Fix an 'uninitialized value' warning when generating statistics for a log file without response headers. + While privoxy-log-parser was supposed to detect this already, the check was flawed and the message the user + didn't see was somewhat confusing anyway. Now the message is less confusing, more helpful and actually + printed. Reported by: Robert Klemme
+Documentation improvements:
+Refer to the git sources instead of CVS.
+Use GNU/Linux when referring to the OS instead of the kernel.
+Add FAQ entry for what to do if editing the config file is access denied.
+Add brief HTTP/2 FAQ.
+Add a small fuzzing section to the developer documentation.
+Add a client-header-tagger{client-ip-address} example.
+Stop suggesting that Privoxy is an anonymizing proxy. The term could lead to Privoxy users + overestimating what it can do on its own (without Tor).
+Make it more obvious that SPI accepts Paypal, too. Currently most donations are made through the Paypal + account managed by Zwiebelfreunde e.V. and a more even distribution would be useful.
+Suggest to log applying actions as well when reproducing problems.
+Explicitly mention that Privoxy binaries are built by individuals on their own systems. Buyer + beware!
+Mention the release feed on the homepage.
+Remove a mysterious comment with a GNU FDL link as it isn't useful and could confuse license scanners. + In May 2002 it was briefly claimed that "this document" was covered by the GNU FDL. The commit message + (r1.5) doesn't explain the motivation or whether all copyright holders were actually asked and agreed to + the declared license change. It's thus hard to tell whether or not the license change was legit, but + luckily two days later the "doc license" was "put" "back to GPL" anyway (r1.6). At the same time the + offending comment with a link to the FDL (not the GPL) was added for no obvious reason. Now it's gone + again.
+Regression tests:
+Bump for-privoxy-version to 3.0.27 as we now rely on untrusted CGI request being rejected with status + code 403 (instead of 200).
+Update test for /send-stylesheet and add another one
+Templates:
+Consistently use https:// when linking to the Privoxy website.
+Remove SourceForge references in Copyright header.
+Remove a couple of SourceForge references in a comment. While at it, fix the grammar.
+Move the site-specific documentation block before the generic one. While most Privoxy installations + don't have a site-specific documentation block, in cases were it exists it's likely to be more relevant + than the generic one. Showing it first makes it less likely that users stop reading before they reach it, + especially on pages that don't fit on the screen.
+Build system improvements:
+Prefer openjade to jade. On some systems Jade produces HTML with unescaped ampersands in URLs.
+Prefer OpenSP to SP to be consistent.
+Have Docbook generated HTML files be straight ASCII. Dealing with a mixture of ISO-8859 and UTF-8 files + is problematic.
+Echo the filename to stderr for 'make dok-tidy'. Make it a bit easier to find errors in docbook + generated HTML.
+Warn when still using select().
+Warn when compiling without calloc().
+Make it more obvious that the --with-fdsetsize configure switch is pointless if poll() is available.
+Remove support for AmigaOS.
+Update windows build system to use supported software. The cygwin gcc -mno-cygwin option is no longer + supported, so convert the windows build system to use the cygwin cross-compiler to build "native" code.
+Add --enable-static-linking option for configure does the same thing as LDFLAGS=-static; ./configure but + nicer than mixing evars and configure options.
+A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier versions of Privoxy:
+The recommended way to upgrade Privoxy is to backup your old + configuration files, install the new ones, verify that Privoxy is working + correctly and finally merge back your changes using diff and maybe + patch.
+There are a number of new features in each Privoxy 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 Privoxy 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.
+In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now. You can change that in the debug section of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose + logging until you verified that the new Privoxy version is working as + expected.
+Three other config file settings are now off by default: enable-remote-toggle, enable-remote-http-toggle, and enable-edit-actions. If you use or want these, you will need to + explicitly enable them, and be aware of the security issues involved.
+