There are many improvements and new features since Privoxy 3.0.3, the last stable release:
Privoxy 3.0.16 is a stable release. + The changes since 3.0.15 beta are:
Multiple filter files can now be specified in config. This allows for - locally defined filters that can be maintained separately from the filters as - supplied by the developers, i.e. default.filter. +> Fixed last-chunk-detection for responses where the content was small + enough to be read with the body, causing Privoxy to wait for the + end of the content until the server closed the connection. + Reported by "Karsten" in #3028326.
- There are a number of new actions: -
Responses with status code 204 weren't properly detected as body-less + like RFC2616 mandates. Like the previous bug, this caused Privoxy + to wait for the end of the content until the server closed the connection. + Fixes #3022042 and #3025553, reported by a user with no visible name. + Most likely also fixes a bunch of other AJAX-related problem reports + that got closed in the past due to insufficient information and lack + of feedback. +
Fixed an ACL bug that made it impossible to build a blacklist. + Usually the ACL directives are used in a whitelist, which worked + as expected, but blacklisting is still useful for public proxies + where one only needs to deny known abusers access. +
Added LOG_LEVEL_RECEIVED to log the not-yet-parsed data read from the + network. This should make debugging various parsing issues a lot easier. +
The IPv6 code is enabled by default on Windows versions that support it. + Patch submitted by oCameLo in #2942729. +
In mingw32 versions, the user.filter file is reachable through the + GUI, just like default.filter is. Feature request 3040263. +
Added the configure option --enable-large-file-support to set a few + defines that are required by platforms like GNU/Linux to support files + larger then 2GB. Mainly interesting for users without proper logfile + management. +
Logging with "debug 16" no longer stops at the first nul byte which is + pretty useless. Non-printable characters are replaced with their hex value + so the result can't span multiple lines making parsing them harder then + necessary. +
Privoxy logs when reading an action, filter or trust file. +
Fixed incorrect regression test markup which caused a test in + 3.0.16 to fail while Privoxy itself was working correctly. + While Privoxy accepts hide-referer, too, the action name is actually + hide-referrer which is also the name used one the final results page, + where the test expected the alias. +
CGI interface improvements: +
filter-server-headers Show the 404 CGI page if cgi_send_user_manual() is called while + local user manual delivery is disabled. +
Enable user.filter by default. Suggested by David White in #3001830. +
redirect -
Remove the too broad yahoo section, only keeping the + fast-redirects exception as discussed on ijbswa-devel@. +Block chartbeat ping tracking. Reported in #2975895. +
Tag CSS and image requests with cautious and medium settings, too. +
Don't handle view.atdmt.com as image. It's used for click-throughs + so users should be able to "go there anyway". + Reported by Adam Piggott in #2975927. +
Also let the refresh-tags filter remove invalid refresh tags where + the 'url=' part is missing. Anonymously reported in #2986382. + While at it, update the description to mention the fact that only + refresh tags with refresh times above 9 seconds are covered. +
javascript needs to be blocked with +handle-as-empty-document to + work around Firefox bug 492459. So move .js blockers from + +block{Might be a web-bug.} -handle-as-empty-document + to + +block{Might be a web-bug.} +handle-as-empty-document +
ijbswa-Feature Requests-3006719 - Block 160x578 Banners. +
Block another omniture tracking domain +
Added a range-requests tagger. +
Added two sections to get Flickr's Ajax interface working with + default pre-settings. If you change the configuration to block + cookies by default, you'll need additional exceptions. + Reported by Mathias Homann in #3101419 and by Patrick on ijbswa-users@ +
In addition, fast-redirects - has been significantly improved with enhanced syntax. -
Documentation improvements: +And hide-referrer Explicitly mention how to match all URLs. +
Consistently recommend socks5 in the Tor FAQ entry and mention + its advantage compared to socks4a. Reported by David in #2960129. +
Slightly improve the explanation of why filtering may appear + slower than it is. +
Grammar fixes for the ACL section. +
MS-Windows versions can now be - installed and - started as a Windows service. -
Privoxy-Log-Parser improvements: +Also gather statistics for blocked and redirected requests. +
config has two new options: - enable-remote-http-toggle, - and forwarded-connect-retries. -
Provide the percentage of keep-alive offers the client accepted. +Add a --url-statistics-threshold option. +
Also gather statistics for ressources, methods, and HTTP versions + used by the client. +
Add a --host-statistics-threshold option to also gather + statistics about how many request where made per host. +
Fix a bug in handle_loglevel_header() where a 'scan: ' got lost. +
Add a --shorten-thread-ids option to replace the thread id with + a decimal number. +
Accept and ignore: Looks like we got the last chunk together + with the server headers. We better stop reading. +
Accept and ignore: Continue hack in da house. +
Accept and higlight: Rejecting connection from 10.0.0.2. + Maximum number of connections reached. +
Accept and highlight: Loading actions file: /usr/local/etc/privoxy/default.action +
Accept and highlight: Loading filter file: /usr/local/etc/privoxy/default.filter +
Accept and highlight: Killed all-caps Host header line: HOST: bestproxydb.com +
And there is improved handling of the user-manual Accept and highlight: Reducing expected bytes to 0. Marking + the server socket tainted after throwing 4 bytes away. +
Accept: Merged multiple header lines to: 'X-FORWARDED-PROTO: http X-HOST: 127.0.0.1' +
There are six new filters. -
Code cleanups: +Remove the next member from the client_state struct. Only the main + thread needs access to all client states so give it its own struct. +
Actions files problems and suggestions are now being directed to: - http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288. - Please use this to report such configuration related problems as missed - ads, sites that don't function properly due to one action or another, - innocent images being blocked, etc. +> Garbage-collect request_contains_null_bytes(). +
Ditch redundant code in unload_configfile(). +
Ditch LogGetURLUnderCursor() which doesn't seem to be used anywhere. +
In write_socket(), remove the write-only variable write_len in + an ifdef __OS2__ block. Spotted by cppcheck. +
In connect_to(), don't declare the variable 'flags' on OS/2 where + it isn't used. Spotted by cppcheck. +
Limit the scope of various variables. Spotted by cppcheck. +
In add_to_iob(), turn an interestingly looking for loop into a + boring while loop. +
Code cleanup in preparation for external filters. +
In listen_loop(), mention the socket on which we accepted the + connection, not just the source IP address. +
In write_socket(), also log the socket we're writing to. +
In log_error(), assert that escaped characters get logged + completely or not at all. +
In log_error(), assert that ival and sval have reasonable values. + There's no reason not to abort() if they don't. +
Remove an incorrect cgi_error_unknown() call in a + cannnot-happen-situation in send_crunch_response(). +
Clean up white-space in http_response definition and + move the crunch_reason to the beginning. +
Turn http_response.reason into an enum and rename it + to http_response.crunch_reason. +
Silence a 'gcc (Debian 4.3.2-1.1) 4.3.2' warning on i686 GNU/Linux. +
In addition, there are numerous bug fixes and significant enhancements, - including error pages should no longer be cached if the problem is fixed, - much better DNS error handling, various logging improvements, and - configuration updates for better ad blocking and junk elimination. +> GNUmakefile improvements: +
Use $(SSH) instead of ssh, so one only needs to specify a username once. +
Removed references to the action feedback thingy that hasn't been + working for years. +
Consistently use shell.sourceforge.net instead of shell.sf.net so + one doesn't need to check server fingerprints twice. +
Removed GNUisms in the webserver and webactions targets so they + work with standard tar. +
A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
versions of
- Some installers may remove earlier versions completely, including
- configuration files. Save any important configuration files!
+> 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.
- On the other hand, other installers may not overwrite any existing configuration
- files, thinking you will want to do that. You may want to manually check
- your saved files against the newer versions to see if the improvements have
- merit, or whether there are new options that you may want to consider.
- There are a number of new features, but most won't be available unless
- these features are incorporated into your configuration somehow.
+> 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.
See the full documentation on
- fast-redirects
- which has changed syntax, and will require adjustments to local configs,
- such as user.action. You must reference the new
- syntax:
- { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
- .example.com
- mybank.com
- .google.
The jarfile, - cookie logger, is off by default now. -
- What constitutes a "default" configuration has changed, - and you may want to review which actions are "on" by - default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features - you may have been used to, may now be "off" by default. - There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to - consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default - settings as yet (see above). + Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely, + including configuration files, therefore you should really save + any important configuration files!
The default actions setting is now Cautious. Previous - releases had a default setting of Medium. Experienced - users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by Privoxy - standards and past practices. See http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default. New users - should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume. -
+ On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration + files, thinking you will want to do that yourself. +The default setting has filtering turned off, which - subsequently means that compression is on. Remember - that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to - use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example: -
{ +filter{google} +prevent-compression }
- .google. |
Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want - to turn off compression for all sites in - default.action (or - + user.action). -
Also, session-cookies-only is - off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want - to turn it back on in standard.action has been merged into + the user.action now. +>default.action file.
- Some installers may not automatically start - 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 after installation. +> 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. +