-Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions
-
-By: Privoxy Developers
-
-$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.29 2002/03/25 05:23:57 hal9 Exp $
-
-The FAQ document gives users and developers alike answers to frequently asked
-questions about Privoxy. Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering
-capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering web page content, managing
-cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other
-obnoxious Internet Junk. Privoxy has a very flexible configuration and can be
-customized to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for
-both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.
-You can find the latest version of the document at http://
-ijbswa.sourceforge.net/faq/. Please see the Contact section in the user-manual
-if you want to contact the developers.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions
-Table of Contents
-1. Frequently Asked Questions
+ By: Privoxy Developers
- 1.1. General Information
-
- 1.1.1. What is this new version of Privoxy?
- 1.1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
- 1.1.3. How does it differ from the old Junkbuster?
- 1.1.4. What are some of the new features?
- 1.1.5. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
- 1.1.6. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use
- Privoxy at all?
- 1.1.7. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty?
- Registration?
- 1.1.8. I would like to help you, what do I do?
-
- 1.2. Installation
-
- 1.2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
- 1.2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
- 1.2.3. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
- 1.2.4. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do
- now?
- 1.2.5. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
- 1.2.6. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads
- are there. What's wrong?
-
- 1.3. Configuration
-
- 1.3.1. Can I use my old config files?
- 1.3.2. What is an "actions" file?
- 1.3.3. The "actions"concept confuses me. Please list some of these
- "actions".
- 1.3.4. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do
- this?
- 1.3.5. What are the differences between intermediate.action,
- basic.action, etc.?
- 1.3.6. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not
- raise security issues?
- 1.3.7. What is a "default.filter"?
- 1.3.8. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
- 1.3.9. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want
- to see anything.
- 1.3.10. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
- 1.3.11. I see large red banners on some pages that say "Blocked". How
- do I get rid of this?
- 1.3.12. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
-
- 1.4. Miscellaneous
-
- 1.4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add
- extra time to browsing.
- 1.4.2. I noticed considerable delays in page requests compared to the
- old Junkbuster. What's wrong?
- 1.4.3. What is the "http://p.p/"?
- 1.4.4. Do you still maintain the blocklists?
- 1.4.5. How can I submit new ads?
- 1.4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
- 1.4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
- 1.4.8. Might some things break because header information is being
- altered?
- 1.4.9. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
- 1.4.10. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
- 1.4.11. The Privoxy logo that replaces ads is very blocky and ugly
- looking. Can't a better font be used?
- 1.4.12. I have large empty spaces now where ads used to be. Why does
- Privoxy leave these large gaps?
- 1.4.13. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
- 1.4.14. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take
- any special precautions?
- 1.4.15. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
-
- 1.5. Troubleshooting
-
- 1.5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every
- web page?
- 1.5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting
- through. How?
- 1.5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I
- do?
- 1.5.4. What time is it?
-
-2. Copyright and History
-3. See also
-
+ $Id: faq.sgml,v 1.30 2002/03/25 16:39:22 hal9 Exp $
+
+ The FAQ document gives users and developers alike answers to
+ frequently asked questions about Privoxy. Privoxy is a web proxy with
+ advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering web
+ page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads,
+ banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet Junk. Privoxy has a very
+ flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs
+ and tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and
+ multi-user networks.
+
+ You can find the latest version of the document at
+ [1]http://www.privoxy.org/faq/. Please see the Contact section in the
+ [2]user-manual if you want to contact the developers.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+ Table of Contents
+ 1. [3]Frequently Asked Questions
+
+ 1.1. [4]General Information
+
+ 1.1.1. [5]What is this new version of Privoxy?
+ 1.1.2. [6]Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
+ 1.1.3. [7]How does it differ from the old Junkbuster?
+ 1.1.4. [8]What are some of the new features?
+ 1.1.5. [9]What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
+ 1.1.6. [10]My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why
+ should I use Privoxy at all?
+
+ 1.1.7. [11]Is there is a license or fee? What about a
+ warranty? Registration?
+
+ 1.1.8. [12]I would like to help you, what do I do?
+
+ 1.2. [13]Installation
+
+ 1.2.1. [14]Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
+ 1.2.2. [15]Which operating systems are supported?
+ 1.2.3. [16]Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
+ 1.2.4. [17]I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
+ special I have to do now?
+
+ 1.2.5. [18]What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
+ 1.2.6. [19]I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is
+ happening. All the ads are there. What's wrong?
+
+ 1.3. [20]Configuration
+
+ 1.3.1. [21]Can I use my old config files?
+ 1.3.2. [22]What is an "actions" file?
+ 1.3.3. [23]The "actions"concept confuses me. Please list
+ some of these "actions".
+
+ 1.3.4. [24]How are actions files configured? What is the
+ easiest way to do this?
+
+ 1.3.5. [25]What are the differences between
+ intermediate.action, basic.action, etc.?
+
+ 1.3.6. [26]Why can I change the configuration with a
+ browser? Does that not raise security issues?
+
+ 1.3.7. [27]What is a "default.filter"?
+ 1.3.8. [28]How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for
+ my LAN?
+
+ 1.3.9. [29]Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard
+ pattern. I don't want to see anything.
+
+ 1.3.10. [30]Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard
+ pattern?
+
+ 1.3.11. [31]I see large red banners on some pages that say
+ "Blocked". How do I get rid of this?
+
+ 1.3.12. [32]How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies
+ like Squid?
+
+ 1.4. [33]Miscellaneous
+
+ 1.4.1. [34]How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down?
+ This has to add extra time to browsing.
+
+ 1.4.2. [35]I noticed considerable delays in page requests
+ compared to the old Junkbuster. What's wrong?
+
+ 1.4.3. [36]What is the "http://p.p/"?
+ 1.4.4. [37]Do you still maintain the blocklists?
+ 1.4.5. [38]How can I submit new ads?
+ 1.4.6. [39]How can I hide my IP address?
+ 1.4.7. [40]Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
+ 1.4.8. [41]Might some things break because header
+ information is being altered?
+
+ 1.4.9. [42]Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up
+ web browsing?
+
+ 1.4.10. [43]What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect
+ me?
+
+ 1.4.11. [44]The Privoxy logo that replaces ads is very
+ blocky and ugly looking. Can't a better font be
+ used?
+
+ 1.4.12. [45]I have large empty spaces now where ads used to
+ be. Why does Privoxy leave these large gaps?
+
+ 1.4.13. [46]How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
+ 1.4.14. [47]Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it?
+ Do I need to take any special precautions?
+
+ 1.4.15. [48]How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+
+ 1.5. [49]Troubleshooting
+
+ 1.5.1. [50]I just upgraded and am getting "connection
+ refused" with every web page?
+
+ 1.5.2. [51]I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
+ still getting through. How?
+
+ 1.5.3. [52]One of my favorite sites does not work with
+ Privoxy. What can I do?
+
+ 1.5.4. [53]What time is it?
+
+ 2. [54]Copyright and History
+ 3. [55]See also
+
1. Frequently Asked Questions
1.1. General Information
1.1.1. What is this new version of Privoxy?
-The original Internet Junkbuster (tm) is a copyrighted product of Junkbusters
-Corporation. Development of this effort stopped some time ago as of version
-2.0.2. Stefan Waldherr started the ijbswa project on Sourceforge to rekindle
-development. Other developers subsequently joined with Stefan, and have since
-added many new features, refinements and enhancements.
-
-The new Privoxy started with the same Junkbuster code base, but has changed
-significantly at this point.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
-
-Privoxy is for "Privacy Enhancing Proxy". There are possible legal
-complications from the continued use of the Junkbuster name, which is a
-trademark of Junkbusters Corporation. (There are no objections from Junkbusters
-Corporation to the Privoxy project itself though, and they in fact still share
-our ideals and goals.)
-
-The developers also believed that there so many changes from the original code,
-that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make a name in their
-own right, especially now with the pending release of version 3.0.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.1.3. How does it differ from the old Junkbuster?
-
-All the old features remain. The new Privoxy still blocks ads and banners,
-still manages cookies, and still helps protect your privacy. But, these are all
-enhanced, and many new features have been added, all in the same vein.
-
-The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
-users will notice right off the bat. The "blocklist" file does not exist any
-more. This is replaced by "actions" files, such as default.actions. This is
-where most of the per site configuration is now.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.1.4. What are some of the new features?
-
- * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility (http://p.p).
- Browser-based tracing of rule and filter effects.
+ The original Internet Junkbuster (tm) is a copyrighted product of
+ [56]Junkbusters Corporation. Development of this effort stopped some
+ time ago as of version 2.0.2. Stefan Waldherr started the ijbswa
+ project on [57]Sourceforge to rekindle development. Other developers
+ subsequently joined with Stefan, and have since added many new
+ features, refinements and enhancements.
- * Blocking of annoying pop-up browser windows.
+ The new Privoxy started with the same Junkbuster code base, but has
+ changed significantly at this point.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * HTTP/1.1 compliant (most, but not all 1.1 features are supported).
-
- * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
- and generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
- previous versions.
+1.1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
+
+ Privoxy is for "Privacy Enhancing Proxy". There are possible legal
+ complications from the continued use of the Junkbuster name, which is
+ a trademark of [58]Junkbusters Corporation. (There are no objections
+ from Junkbusters Corporation to the Privoxy project itself though, and
+ they in fact still share our ideals and goals.)
- * GIF de-animation.
+ The developers also believed that there so many changes from the
+ original code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past
+ and make a name in their own right, especially now with the pending
+ release of version 3.0.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
- "web-bugs", JavaScript, pop-ups, status bar abuse, etc.)
+1.1.3. How does it differ from the old Junkbuster?
+
+ All the old features remain. The new Privoxy still blocks ads and
+ banners, still manages cookies, and still helps protect your privacy.
+ But, these are all enhanced, and many new features have been added,
+ all in the same vein.
- * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something
+ that users will notice right off the bat. The "blocklist" file does
+ not exist any more. This is replaced by "actions" files, such as
+ default.actions. This is where most of the per site configuration is
+ now.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+1.1.4. What are some of the new features?
+
+ * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility
+ ([59]http://p.p). Browser-based tracing of rule and filter
+ effects.
+ * Blocking of annoying pop-up browser windows.
+ * HTTP/1.1 compliant (most, but not all 1.1 features are supported).
+ * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the
+ configuration files, and generally a more sophisticated and
+ flexible configuration syntax over previous versions.
+ * GIF de-animation.
+ * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size,
+ invisible "web-bugs", JavaScript, pop-ups, status bar abuse, etc.)
+ * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+ * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+ * User-customizable HTML templates (e.g. 404 error page).
+ * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ * Builds from source on most UNIX-like systems. Packages available
+ for: Linux (RedHat, SuSE, or Debian), Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac
+ OSX, OS/2, HP-UX 11 and AmigaOS.
+ * In addition, the configuration is much more powerful and versatile
+ over-all.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+1.1.5. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
+
+ When you connect to a web site with Privoxy, you are really connecting
+ to your locally running version of Privoxy. Privoxy intercepts your
+ requests for the web page, and relays that to the "real" web site. The
+ web site sends the HTTP data stream back to Privoxy, where Privoxy can
+ work its magic before it relays this data back to your web browser.
- * User-customizable HTML templates (e.g. 404 error page).
+ Since Privoxy sits between you and the WWW, it is in a position to
+ intercept and completely manage all web traffic and HTTP content
+ before it gets to your browser. Privoxy uses various programming
+ methods to do this, all of which is under your control via the various
+ configuration files and options.
- * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ There are many kinds of proxies. Privoxy best fits the "filtering
+ proxy" category.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * Builds from source on most UNIX-like systems. Packages available for: Linux
- (RedHat, SuSE, or Debian), Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac OSX, OS/2, HP-UX 11
- and AmigaOS.
+1.1.6. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy
+at all?
+
+ Modern browsers do indeed have some of the same functionality as
+ Privoxy. Maybe this is adequate for you. But Privoxy is much more
+ versatile and powerful, and can do a number of things that browsers
+ just can't.
- * In addition, the configuration is much more powerful and versatile
- over-all.
+ In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
+ have a LAN with multiple computers. This way all the configuration is
+ in one place, and you don't have to maintain a similar configuration
+ for possibly many browsers.
+ _________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.1.5. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
-
-When you connect to a web site with Privoxy, you are really connecting to your
-locally running version of Privoxy. Privoxy intercepts your requests for the
-web page, and relays that to the "real" web site. The web site sends the HTTP
-data stream back to Privoxy, where Privoxy can work its magic before it relays
-this data back to your web browser.
-
-Since Privoxy sits between you and the WWW, it is in a position to intercept
-and completely manage all web traffic and HTTP content before it gets to your
-browser. Privoxy uses various programming methods to do this, all of which is
-under your control via the various configuration files and options.
-
-There are many kinds of proxies. Privoxy best fits the "filtering proxy"
-category.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.1.6. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at
-all?
-
-Modern browsers do indeed have some of the same functionality as Privoxy. Maybe
-this is adequate for you. But Privoxy is much more versatile and powerful, and
-can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
-
-In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or have a LAN
-with multiple computers. This way all the configuration is in one place, and
-you don't have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
1.1.7. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
-Privoxy is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is free to
-use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this license.
-See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for specifics.
-
-There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise. That is
-something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
-Privoxy really is free in every respect!
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Privoxy is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is
+ free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of
+ this license. See [60]http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for
+ specifics.
+
+ There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
+ That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no
+ registration either. Privoxy really is free in every respect!
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.1.8. I would like to help you, what do I do?
1.1.8.1. Money Money Money
-We, of course, welcome donations and use the money for domain registering,
-regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). Anyway, we'll soon describe the
-process how to donate money to the team.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ We, of course, welcome donations and use the money for domain
+ registering, regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). Anyway, we'll
+ soon describe the process how to donate money to the team.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.1.8.2. You want to work with us?
-Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers, RPM
-gurus or documentation makers. Simply get an account on sourceforge.net and
-mail your id to the developer mailing list. Then read the section Quickstart in
-the developers manual.
-
-Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the CVS
-repository, and together we'll find a suitable task for you.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new
+ developers, RPM gurus or documentation makers. Simply get an account
+ on sourceforge.net and mail your id to the developer mailing list.
+ Then read the section Quickstart in the developers manual.
+
+ Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the
+ CVS repository, and together we'll find a suitable task for you.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.2. Installation
1.2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
-Any browser that can be configured to use a "proxy", which is probably almost
-all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary since Privoxy runs as a
-separate application and just exchanges standard HTML data with your browser.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Any browser that can be configured to use a "proxy", which is probably
+ almost all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary since
+ Privoxy runs as a separate application and just exchanges standard
+ HTML data with your browser.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
-Right now Win32, Mac OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS, Linux, and many flavors of Unix.
-
-Source code is available, so porting to other operating systems, is always a
-possibility.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Right now Win32, Mac OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS, Linux, and many flavors of
+ Unix.
+
+ Source code is available, so porting to other operating systems, is
+ always a possibility.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.2.3. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
-We recommend you uninstall Junkbuster first to minimize conflicts and
-confusion. You may want to save your old configuration files for future
-reference. The configuration is substantially changed.
-
-See the user-manual for platform specific installation instructions. [FIXME:
-This is meant for after the name change for 3.0!]
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ We recommend you uninstall Junkbuster first to minimize conflicts and
+ confusion. You may want to save your old configuration files for
+ future reference. The configuration is substantially changed.
+
+ See the [61]user-manual for platform specific installation
+ instructions. [FIXME: This is meant for after the name change for
+ 3.0!]
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.2.4. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
-All browsers must be told to use Privoxy as a proxy by specifying the correct
-proxy address and port number in the appropriate configuration area for the
-browser. See below.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ All browsers must be told to use Privoxy as a proxy by specifying the
+ correct proxy address and port number in the appropriate configuration
+ area for the browser. See below.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.2.5. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
-If you set up the Privoxy to run on the computer you browse from (rather than
-your ISP's server or some networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on
-"localhost" (which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet
-to refer to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you have Privoxy to run
-on a different port with the listen-address config option).
-
-When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter the word
-"localhost" in the boxes next to "HTTP" and "Secure" (HTTPS) and then the
-number "8118" for "port". This tells your browser to send all web requests to
-Privoxy instead of directly to the Internet.
-
-Privoxy can also be used to proxy for a Local Area Network. In this case, your
-would enter either the IP address of the LAN host where Privoxy is running, or
-the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be same as above.
-
-Privoxy does not currently handle protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, or
-other Internet protocols.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ If you set up the Privoxy to run on the computer you browse from
+ (rather than your ISP's server or some networked computer on a LAN),
+ the proxy will be on "localhost" (which is the special name used by
+ every computer on the Internet to refer to itself) and the port will
+ be 8118 (unless you have Privoxy to run on a different port with the
+ listen-address config option).
+
+ When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter the
+ word "localhost" in the boxes next to "HTTP" and "Secure" (HTTPS) and
+ then the number "8118" for "port". This tells your browser to send all
+ web requests to Privoxy instead of directly to the Internet.
+
+ Privoxy can also be used to proxy for a Local Area Network. In this
+ case, your would enter either the IP address of the LAN host where
+ Privoxy is running, or the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would
+ be same as above.
+
+ Privoxy does not currently handle protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM,
+ IRC, ICQ, or other Internet protocols.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.2.6. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are
there. What's wrong?
-Did you configure your browser to use Privoxy as a proxy? It does not sound
-like it. See above. You might also try flushing the browser's caches to force a
-full re-reading of pages. You can verify that Privoxy is running, and your
-browser is correctly configured by entering the special URL: http://p.p/. This
-should give you a banner that says "This is Privoxy" and access to Privoxy's
-internal configuration. If you see this, then you are good to go. If not, the
-browser or Privoxy are not set up correctly.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Did you configure your browser to use Privoxy as a proxy? It does not
+ sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing the browser's
+ caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify that
+ Privoxy is running, and your browser is correctly configured by
+ entering the special URL: [62]http://p.p/. This should give you a
+ banner that says "This is Privoxy" and access to Privoxy's internal
+ configuration. If you see this, then you are good to go. If not, the
+ browser or Privoxy are not set up correctly.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3. Configuration
1.3.1. Can I use my old config files?
-There are major changes to Junkbuster configuration from version 2.0.x to 2.9.x
-and later. The older files will not work at all. If this is the case, you will
-need to re-enter your old data into the new configuration structure. This is
-probably also a good recommendation even if upgrading from 2.9.x to 3.x since
-there were many minor changes along the way.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ There are major changes to Junkbuster configuration from version 2.0.x
+ to 2.9.x and later. The older files will not work at all. If this is
+ the case, you will need to re-enter your old data into the new
+ configuration structure. This is probably also a good recommendation
+ even if upgrading from 2.9.x to 3.x since there were many minor
+ changes along the way.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.2. What is an "actions" file?
-"actions" files are where various actions that Privoxy might take, are
-configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions that apply to
-all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults.
-
-Actions can be defined on a per site basis, or for groups of sites. Actions can
-also be grouped together and then applied to one or more sites. There are many
-possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example, if we are
-blocking cookies as one of our default actions, but need to accept cookies from
-a given site, we would define this in our "actions" file.
-
-Privoxy comes with several default actions files, with varying degrees of
-filtering and blocking, as starting points for your own configuration (see
-below).
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.3.3. The "actions"concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions".
-
-These are all explained in the user-manual. Please refer to that.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ "actions" files are where various actions that Privoxy might take, are
+ configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions that
+ apply to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults.
+
+ Actions can be defined on a per site basis, or for groups of sites.
+ Actions can also be grouped together and then applied to one or more
+ sites. There are many possible actions that might apply to any given
+ site. As an example, if we are blocking cookies as one of our default
+ actions, but need to accept cookies from a given site, we would define
+ this in our "actions" file.
+
+ Privoxy comes with several default actions files, with varying degrees
+ of filtering and blocking, as starting points for your own
+ configuration (see below).
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+1.3.3. The "actions"concept confuses me. Please list some of these
+"actions".
+ These are all explained in the [63]user-manual. Please refer to that.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.4. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
-The easiest way to do this, is to access Privoxy with your web browser at http:
-//p.p/, and then select "Edit the actions list" from the selection list. You
-can also do this by editing the appropriate file with a text editor.
-
-Please see the user-manual for a detailed explanation of these and other
-configuration files, and their various options and syntax.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ The easiest way to do this, is to access Privoxy with your web browser
+ at [64]http://p.p/, and then select "[65]Edit the actions list" from
+ the selection list. You can also do this by editing the appropriate
+ file with a text editor.
+
+ Please see the [66]user-manual for a detailed explanation of these and
+ other configuration files, and their various options and syntax.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.5. What are the differences between intermediate.action, basic.action,
etc.?
-Configuring Privoxy is not easy. To help you get started, we provide you with
-three different default configurations. The following table shows you, which
-features are enabled in each configuration.
-
-Table 1. Default Configurations
-
-+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-|Feature |default.action|basic.action |intermediate.action|advanced.action|
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|ad-filtering |? |x |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|blank image |? |x |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|de-animate GIFs |? |x |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|referer forging |? |x |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|jon's |? |x |x |x |
-|+no-cookies-keep | | | | |
-|(i.e. session | | | | |
-|cookies only) | | | | |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|no-popup windows |? | |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|fast redirects |? | |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|hide-referrer |? | |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|hide-useragent |? | |x |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|content-modification|? | | |x |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|feature-x |? | | | |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|feature-y |? | | | |
-|--------------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------|
-|feature-z |? | | | |
-+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.3.6. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
-security issues?
-
-What I don't understand, is how I can browser edit the config file as a regular
-user, while the whole /etc/privoxy hierarchy belongs to the user "privoxy",
-with only 644 perms.
-
-When you use the browser-based editor, Privoxy itself is writing to the config
-files. Because Privoxy is running as the user "privoxy", it can update the
-config files.
-
-If you don't like this, setting "enable-edit-actions 0" in the config file will
-disable the browser-based editor. If you're that paranoid, you should also
-consider setting "enable-remote-toggle 0" to prevent browser-based enabling/
-disabling of Privoxy.
-
-Note that normally only local users can connect to Privoxy, so this is not
-(normally) a security problem.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Configuring Privoxy is not easy. To help you get started, we provide
+ you with three different default configurations. The following table
+ shows you, which features are enabled in each configuration.
+
+ Table 1. Default Configurations
+ Feature default.action basic.action intermediate.action
+ advanced.action
+ ad-filtering ? x x x
+ blank image ? x x x
+ de-animate GIFs ? x x x
+ referer forging ? x x x
+ jon's +no-cookies-keep (i.e. session cookies only) ? x x x
+ no-popup windows ? x x
+ fast redirects ? x x
+ hide-referrer ? x x
+ hide-useragent ? x x
+ content-modification ? x
+ feature-x ?
+ feature-y ?
+ feature-z ?
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+1.3.6. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not
+raise security issues?
+ What I don't understand, is how I can browser edit the config file as
+ a regular user, while the whole /etc/privoxy hierarchy belongs to the
+ user "privoxy", with only 644 perms.
+
+ When you use the browser-based editor, Privoxy itself is writing to
+ the config files. Because Privoxy is running as the user "privoxy", it
+ can update the config files.
+
+ If you don't like this, setting "enable-edit-actions 0" in the config
+ file will disable the browser-based editor. If you're that paranoid,
+ you should also consider setting "enable-remote-toggle 0" to prevent
+ browser-based enabling/disabling of Privoxy.
+
+ Note that normally only local users can connect to Privoxy, so this is
+ not (normally) a security problem.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.7. What is a "default.filter"?
-The "default.filter" file is used to "filter" any web page content. By
-"filtering" we mean it can modify, remove, or change anything on the page,
-including HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used to accomplish
-this, and operate on a line by line basis. This is potentially a very powerful
-feature, but requires some expertise.
-
-If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at the
-provided default.filter with a text editor and see some of things it can be
-used for.
-
-Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
-but you can disable/enable various sections of the included default file with
-the "Actions List Editor" from your browser.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ The "default.filter" file is used to "filter" any web page content. By
+ "filtering" we mean it can modify, remove, or change anything on the
+ page, including HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are
+ used to accomplish this, and operate on a line by line basis. This is
+ potentially a very powerful feature, but requires some expertise.
+
+ If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look
+ at the provided default.filter with a text editor and see some of
+ things it can be used for.
+
+ Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the
+ configuration, but you can disable/enable various sections of the
+ included default file with the "Actions List Editor" from your
+ browser.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.8. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
-By default, Privoxy only responds to requests from localhost. To have it act as
-a server for a network, this needs to be changed in the main config file where
-the Privoxy configuration is located. In that file is a "listen-address"
-option. It may be commented out with a "#" symbol. Make sure it is uncommented,
-and assign it the address of the LAN gateway interface, and port number to use:
-
- listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118
-
-
-Save the file, and restart Privoxy. Configure all browsers on the network then
-to use this address and port number.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ By default, Privoxy only responds to requests from localhost. To have
+ it act as a server for a network, this needs to be changed in the main
+ config file where the Privoxy configuration is located. In that file
+ is a "listen-address" option. It may be commented out with a "#"
+ symbol. Make sure it is uncommented, and assign it the address of the
+ LAN gateway interface, and port number to use:
+
+ listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118
+ Save the file, and restart Privoxy. Configure all browsers on the
+ network then to use this address and port number.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.9. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
anything.
-This is a configuration option for images that Privoxy is stopping. You have
-the choice a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF image (aka "blank"),
-or a custom URL or your choice.
-
-If you want to see nothing, then change the "+image-blocker" action to
-"+image-blocker{blank}". This can be done from the "Edit Actions List"
-selection at http://p.p/. Or by hand editing the appropriate actions file. This
-will only effect what is defined as "images" though.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ This is a configuration option for images that Privoxy is stopping.
+ You have the choice a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
+ image (aka "blank"), or a custom URL or your choice.
+
+ If you want to see nothing, then change the "+image-blocker" action to
+ "+image-blocker{blank}". This can be done from the "Edit Actions List"
+ selection at [67]http://p.p/. Or by hand editing the appropriate
+ actions file. This will only effect what is defined as "images"
+ though.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.10. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
-This can be helpful for troubleshooting problems. It might also be good for
-anyone new to Privoxy so that they can see if their favorite pages are
-displaying correctly, and Privoxy is not inadvertently removing something
-important.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.3.11. I see large red banners on some pages that say "Blocked". How do I get
-rid of this?
-
-These are URLs that match something in one of Privoxy's block actions (+block).
-It is meant to be a warning so that you know something has been blocked and an
-easy way for you to see why. These are handled differently than what has been
-defined as "images" (e.g. ad banners). If you want them to be treated as if
-they were images, so that they can be made invisible, then move the offending
-URL from the "+block" section to the "+imageblock" section of your actions
-file. Alternately, you could modify the "block" HTML template that is used by
-Privoxy to display this, and make it something more to your liking.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ This can be helpful for troubleshooting problems. It might also be
+ good for anyone new to Privoxy so that they can see if their favorite
+ pages are displaying correctly, and Privoxy is not inadvertently
+ removing something important.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+1.3.11. I see large red banners on some pages that say "Blocked". How do I
+get rid of this?
+
+ These are URLs that match something in one of Privoxy's block actions
+ (+block). It is meant to be a warning so that you know something has
+ been blocked and an easy way for you to see why. These are handled
+ differently than what has been defined as "images" (e.g. ad banners).
+ If you want them to be treated as if they were images, so that they
+ can be made invisible, then move the offending URL from the "+block"
+ section to the "+imageblock" section of your actions file.
+ Alternately, you could modify the "block" HTML template that is used
+ by Privoxy to display this, and make it something more to your liking.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.3.12. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
-This can be done. See the user manual, which describes how to do this.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ This can be done. See the [68]user manual, which describes how to do
+ this.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4. Miscellaneous
-1.4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra time
-to browsing.
-
-It should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help speed
-things up since ads, banners and other junk are not being displayed. The actual
-processing time required by Privoxy itself for each page, is relatively small
-in the overall scheme of things, and happens very quickly. This is typically
-more than offset by time saved not downloading and rendering ad images.
-
-"Filtering" via the filterfile mechanism may cause a perceived slowdown, since
-the entire page is buffered before displaying. See below.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+1.4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra
+time to browsing.
+ It should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
+ speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not being
+ displayed. The actual processing time required by Privoxy itself for
+ each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of things, and
+ happens very quickly. This is typically more than offset by time saved
+ not downloading and rendering ad images.
+
+ "Filtering" via the filterfile mechanism may cause a perceived
+ slowdown, since the entire page is buffered before displaying. See
+ below.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.2. I noticed considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
Junkbuster. What's wrong?
-Using the default filtering configuration, I noticed considerable delays in
-page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. Loading pages with large contents
-seemed to take forever, then suddenly delivering all the content at once.
-
-The whole content must be loaded in order to filter, and nothing is is sent to
-the browser during this time. The loading time does not really change in real
-numbers, but the feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start
-rendering incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works".
-
-To modify the content of a page (i.e. make frames resizeable again, etc.) and
-not just replace ads, Privoxy needs to download the entire page first, do its
-content magic and then send the page to the browser.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Using the default filtering configuration, I noticed considerable
+ delays in page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. Loading pages
+ with large contents seemed to take forever, then suddenly delivering
+ all the content at once.
+
+ The whole content must be loaded in order to filter, and nothing is is
+ sent to the browser during this time. The loading time does not really
+ change in real numbers, but the feeling is different, because most
+ browsers are able to start rendering incomplete content, giving the
+ user a feeling of "it works".
+
+ To modify the content of a page (i.e. make frames resizeable again,
+ etc.) and not just replace ads, Privoxy needs to download the entire
+ page first, do its content magic and then send the page to the
+ browser.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.3. What is the "http://p.p/"?
-Since Privoxy sits between your web browser and the Internet, it can be
-programmed to handle certain pages specially.
-
-With recent versions of Privoxy (version 2.9.x), you can get some information
-about Privoxy and change some settings by going to http://p.p/ or,
-equivalently, http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/ (Note that p.p is far
-easier to type but may not work in some configurations).
-
-These pages are *not* forwarded to a server on the Internet - instead they are
-handled by a special web server which is built in to Privoxy.
-
-If you are not running Privoxy, then http://p.p/ will fail, and http://
-ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/ will return a web page telling you you're not
-running Privoxy.
-
-If you have version 2.0.2, then the equivalent is http://example.com/
-show-proxy-args (but you get far less information, and you should really
-consider upgrading to 2.9.x).
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Since Privoxy sits between your web browser and the Internet, it can
+ be programmed to handle certain pages specially.
+
+ With recent versions of Privoxy (version 2.9.x), you can get some
+ information about Privoxy and change some settings by going to
+ http://p.p/ or, equivalently, http://www.privoxy.org/config/ (Note
+ that p.p is far easier to type but may not work in some
+ configurations).
+
+ These pages are *not* forwarded to a server on the Internet - instead
+ they are handled by a special web server which is built in to Privoxy.
+
+ If you are not running Privoxy, then http://p.p/ will fail, and
+ http://www.privoxy.org/config/ will return a web page telling you
+ you're not running Privoxy.
+
+ If you have version 2.0.2, then the equivalent is
+ http://example.com/show-proxy-args (but you get far less information,
+ and you should really consider upgrading to 2.9.x).
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.4. Do you still maintain the blocklists?
-No. The format of the blocklists has changed significantly in the versions
-2.9.x. Once we have released the new version, there will again be blocklists
-that you can update automatically.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ No. The format of the blocklists has changed significantly in the
+ versions 2.9.x. Once we have released the new version, there will
+ again be blocklists that you can update automatically.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.5. How can I submit new ads?
-As of now, please discontinue to submit new ad blocking infos. Once we have
-released the new version, there will again be a form on the website, which you
-can use to contribute new ads.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ As of now, please discontinue to submit new ad blocking infos. Once we
+ have released the new version, there will again be a form on the
+ website, which you can use to contribute new ads.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
-You cannot hide your IP address with Privoxy or any other software, since the
-server needs to know your IP address to send the answer to you.
-
-Fortunately there are many publicly usable anonymous proxies out there, which
-solve the problem by providing a further level of indirection between you and
-the web server, shared by many people and thus letting your requests "drown" in
-white noise of unrelated requests as far as user tracking is concerned.
-
-Most of them will, however, log your IP address and make it available to the
-authorities in case you abuse that anonymity for criminal purposes. In fact you
-can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information on
-(those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
-
-You can find a list of anonymous public proxies at multiproxy.org and many more
-through Google.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ You cannot hide your IP address with Privoxy or any other software,
+ since the server needs to know your IP address to send the answer to
+ you.
+
+ Fortunately there are many publicly usable anonymous proxies out
+ there, which solve the problem by providing a further level of
+ indirection between you and the web server, shared by many people and
+ thus letting your requests "drown" in white noise of unrelated
+ requests as far as user tracking is concerned.
+
+ Most of them will, however, log your IP address and make it available
+ to the authorities in case you abuse that anonymity for criminal
+ purposes. In fact you can't even rule out that some of them only exist
+ to *collect* information on (those suspicious) people with a more than
+ average preference for privacy.
+
+ You can find a list of anonymous public proxies at [69]multiproxy.org
+ and many more through Google.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
-No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
-are an expert on Internet security it would be safest to assume that everything
-you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
-
-Privoxy can remove various information about you, and allows you more freedom
-to decide which sites you can trust. But it's still possible that web sites can
-find out who you are. Here's one way this can happen.
-
-A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such as
-when transferring a file by FTP. Privoxy does not filter FTP. If you need this
-feature, or are concerned about the mail handler of your browser disclosing
-your email address, you might consider products such as NSClean.
-
-Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give out
-any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
-agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
-that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
-source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
-Luke!
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but
+ unless you are an expert on Internet security it would be safest to
+ assume that everything you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
+
+ Privoxy can remove various information about you, and allows you more
+ freedom to decide which sites you can trust. But it's still possible
+ that web sites can find out who you are. Here's one way this can
+ happen.
+
+ A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain
+ situations, such as when transferring a file by FTP. Privoxy does not
+ filter FTP. If you need this feature, or are concerned about the mail
+ handler of your browser disclosing your email address, you might
+ consider products such as NSClean.
+
+ Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to
+ give out any information they can have access to: see the
+ manufacturer's license agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and
+ prevent every breach of privacy that might occur. The professionally
+ paranoid prefer browsers available as source code, because
+ anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source, Luke!
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.8. Might some things break because header information is being altered?
-Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what to
-display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be handled, so
-having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
-
-"USER AGENT" in particular is often used in this way to identify the browser,
-and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now is not recommended, since so
-many sites do look for this. You may get undesirable results by changing this.
-
-For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
-characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the User
-Agent header. Giving a "User Agent" with the wrong operating system or browser
-manufacturer causes some sites in these languages to be garbled; Surfers to
-Eastern European sites should change it to something closer. And then some page
-access counters work by looking at the "REFERER" header; they may fail or break
-if unavailable. The weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their
-server when no "REFERER" or cookie is provided, is another example. There are
-many, many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
-
-If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
-accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may be
-required, but by no means the only one.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what
+ to display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be
+ handled, so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
+
+ "USER AGENT" in particular is often used in this way to identify the
+ browser, and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now is not
+ recommended, since so many sites do look for this. You may get
+ undesirable results by changing this.
+
+ For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian
+ and Czech characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly
+ according to the User Agent header. Giving a "User Agent" with the
+ wrong operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in
+ these languages to be garbled; Surfers to Eastern European sites
+ should change it to something closer. And then some page access
+ counters work by looking at the "REFERER" header; they may fail or
+ break if unavailable. The weather maps of Intellicast have been
+ blocked by their server when no "REFERER" or cookie is provided, is
+ another example. There are many, many other ways things can go wrong
+ when trying to fool a web server.
+
+ If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your
+ configuration accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely
+ adjustment that may be required, but by no means the only one.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.9. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
-No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like Squid for
-this. And, yes, before you ask, Privoxy can co-exist with other kinds of
-proxies like "Squid".
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
+ [70]Squid for this. And, yes, before you ask, Privoxy can co-exist
+ with other kinds of proxies like "Squid".
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.10. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
-Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can, or a proxy that has
-this specific capability. Privoxy can help protect your privacy, but not really
-protect you from intrusion attempts.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can, or a proxy
+ that has this specific capability. Privoxy can help protect your
+ privacy, but not really protect you from intrusion attempts.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.11. The Privoxy logo that replaces ads is very blocky and ugly looking.
Can't a better font be used?
-This is not a font problem. The logo is an image that is created by Privoxy on
-the fly. So as to not waste memory, the image is rather small. The blockiness
-comes when the image is scaled to fill a largish area. There is not much to be
-done about this, other than to use one of the other "imageblock" directives:
-pattern, blank, or a URL of your choosing.
-
-Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option entirely [as
-of v2.9.13].
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ This is not a font problem. The logo is an image that is created by
+ Privoxy on the fly. So as to not waste memory, the image is rather
+ small. The blockiness comes when the image is scaled to fill a largish
+ area. There is not much to be done about this, other than to use one
+ of the other "imageblock" directives: pattern, blank, or a URL of your
+ choosing.
+
+ Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option
+ entirely [as of v2.9.13].
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.12. I have large empty spaces now where ads used to be. Why does Privoxy
leave these large gaps?
-It would be easy enough to just eliminate this space altogether, rather than
-fill it with blank space. But, this would create problems with many pages that
-use the overall size of the ad to help organize the page layout and position
-the various components of the page where they were intended to be. It is best
-left this way.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ It would be easy enough to just eliminate this space altogether,
+ rather than fill it with blank space. But, this would create problems
+ with many pages that use the overall size of the ad to help organize
+ the page layout and position the various components of the page where
+ they were intended to be. It is best left this way.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.13. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
-This is a limitation since HTTPS transactions are encrypted SSL sessions
-between your browser and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably secure
-and private. This means that all cookies and HTTP header information are also
-encrypted from the time they leave your browser, to the site, and vice versa.
-Privoxy does not try to unencrypt this information, so it just passes through
-as is. Privoxy can still catch images and ads that are embedded in the SSL
-stream though.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ This is a limitation since HTTPS transactions are encrypted SSL
+ sessions between your browser and the secure site, and are meant to be
+ reliably secure and private. This means that all cookies and HTTP
+ header information are also encrypted from the time they leave your
+ browser, to the site, and vice versa. Privoxy does not try to
+ unencrypt this information, so it just passes through as is. Privoxy
+ can still catch images and ads that are embedded in the SSL stream
+ though.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.14. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
special precautions?
-There are no known exploits that might effect Privoxy. On Unix-like systems,
-Privoxy can run as a non-privileged user, which is how we recommend it be run.
-Also, by default Privoxy only listens to requests from "localhost". It is not
-itself directly exposed to the Internet in this configuration. If you want to
-have Privoxy serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to be opened up to allow for
-LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend you specify only the LAN gateway
-address, e.g. 192.168.1.1 in the main Privoxy config file. All LAN hosts can
-then use this as their proxy address in the browser proxy configuration. In
-this way, Privoxy will not listen on any external ports. Of course, a firewall
-is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ There are no known exploits that might effect Privoxy. On Unix-like
+ systems, Privoxy can run as a non-privileged user, which is how we
+ recommend it be run. Also, by default Privoxy only listens to requests
+ from "localhost". It is not itself directly exposed to the Internet in
+ this configuration. If you want to have Privoxy serve as a LAN proxy,
+ this will have to be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this
+ case, we'd recommend you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g.
+ 192.168.1.1 in the main Privoxy config file. All LAN hosts can then
+ use this as their proxy address in the browser proxy configuration. In
+ this way, Privoxy will not listen on any external ports. Of course, a
+ firewall is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.4.15. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
-The easiest way is to access Privoxy with your browser by using the special
-URL: http://p.p/ and select "Toggle Privoxy on or off" from that page.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ The easiest way is to access Privoxy with your browser by using the
+ special URL: [71]http://p.p/ and select "Toggle Privoxy on or off"
+ from that page.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.5. Troubleshooting
-1.5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every web page?
-
-Either Privoxy is not running, or your browser is configured for a different
-port than what Privoxy is using.
-
-The old Privoxy (and also Junkbuster) used port 8000 by default. This has been
-changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict with NAS (Network Audio Service),
-which uses port 8000. If you haven't, you need to change your browser to the
-new port number, or alternately change Privoxy's "listen-address" setting in
-the config file used to start Privoxy.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
-How?
-
-If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be held
-in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without the need
-for any request to the server, and Privoxy will not be in the picture. The best
-thing to do is try flushing the browser's caches. And then try again.
-
-If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you applied. Try
-pasting the full URL of the offending ad into http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/
-config/show-url-info and see if any actions match your new rule.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+1.5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every web
+page?
+ Either Privoxy is not running, or your browser is configured for a
+ different port than what Privoxy is using.
+
+ The old Privoxy (and also Junkbuster) used port 8000 by default. This
+ has been changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict with NAS (Network
+ Audio Service), which uses port 8000. If you haven't, you need to
+ change your browser to the new port number, or alternately change
+ Privoxy's "listen-address" setting in the config file used to start
+ Privoxy.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+1.5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting
+through. How?
+
+ If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will
+ probably be held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be
+ displayed without the need for any request to the server, and Privoxy
+ will not be in the picture. The best thing to do is try flushing the
+ browser's caches. And then try again.
+
+ If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
+ applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into
+ [72]http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info and see if any actions
+ match your new rule.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
-First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by disabling Privoxy
-filtering and blocking. Go to http://p.p/ and click on "Toggle Privoxy On or
-Off", then disable it. Now try that page again.
-
-If still a problem, go to "Show which actions apply to a URL and why" from
-http://p.p/ and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See
-which actions are being applied to the URL. Now, armed with this information,
-go to "Edit the actions list". Here you should see various sections that have
-various Privoxy features disabled for specific sites. Disabled "actions" will
-have a "-" (minus sign) in front of them. Add your problem page URL to one of
-these sections that looks like it is disabling the feature that is causing the
-problem. Re-try the page. There might be some trial and error involved. This is
-discussed in a little more detail in the user-manual appendix.
-
-Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish the
-same thing by editing the appropriate "actions" file.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by disabling Privoxy
+ filtering and blocking. Go to [73]http://p.p/ and click on "Toggle
+ Privoxy On or Off", then disable it. Now try that page again.
+
+ If still a problem, go to "Show which actions apply to a URL and why"
+ from [74]http://p.p/ and paste the full URL of the page in question
+ into the prompt. See which actions are being applied to the URL. Now,
+ armed with this information, go to "Edit the actions list". Here you
+ should see various sections that have various Privoxy features
+ disabled for specific sites. Disabled "actions" will have a "-" (minus
+ sign) in front of them. Add your problem page URL to one of these
+ sections that looks like it is disabling the feature that is causing
+ the problem. Re-try the page. There might be some trial and error
+ involved. This is discussed in a little more detail in the
+ [75]user-manual appendix.
+
+ Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can
+ accomplish the same thing by editing the appropriate "actions" file.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
1.5.4. What time is it?
-Time for you to go!
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Time for you to go!
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
2. Copyright and History
-Please see the user manual for information on Copyright and History.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Please see the user manual for information on Copyright and History.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
3. See also
-Please see the user manual for information on references.
-
+ Please see the user manual for information on references.
+
+References
+
+ 1. http://www.privoxy.org/faq/
+ 2. http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/contact.html
+ 3. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#QUESTIONS
+ 4. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#GENERAL
+ 5. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#NEWJB
+ 6. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN32
+ 7. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#DIFFERS
+ 8. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#FEATURES
+ 9. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#PROXYMORON
+ 10. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#BROWSERS2
+ 11. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#LICENSE
+ 12. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#JOINTEAM
+ 13. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION
+ 14. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#WHICHBROWSERS
+ 15. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#WHICHOS
+ 16. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#NEWINSTALL
+ 17. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN146
+ 18. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#LOCALHOST
+ 19. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN171
+ 20. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#CONFIGURATION
+ 21. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#NEWCONFIG
+ 22. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN187
+ 23. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#ACTIONSS
+ 24. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN205
+ 25. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#CONFIGFILES
+ 26. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#BROWSECONFIG
+ 27. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN322
+ 28. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN334
+ 29. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN346
+ 30. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN357
+ 31. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN362
+ 32. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#OTHERPROXY
+ 33. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#MISC
+ 34. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN381
+ 35. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#LOADINGTIMES
+ 36. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#CONFIGURL
+ 37. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#BLOCKLIST
+ 38. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#NEWADS
+ 39. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#IP
+ 40. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN422
+ 41. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN433
+ 42. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN443
+ 43. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN451
+ 44. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN456
+ 45. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN465
+ 46. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN469
+ 47. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN476
+ 48. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#TURNOFF
+ 49. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN494
+ 50. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN496
+ 51. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN509
+ 52. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN515
+ 53. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN533
+ 54. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#COPYRIGHT
+ 55. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#SEEALSO
+ 56. http://www.junkbusters.com/
+ 57. http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/
+ 58. http://junkbusters.com/
+ 59. http://p.p/
+ 60. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
+ 61. http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/
+ 62. http://p.p/
+ 63. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE
+ 64. http://p.p/
+ 65. http://www.privoxy.org/config/edit-actions
+ 66. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE
+ 67. http://p.p/
+ 68. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/user-manual/configuration.html#FORWARDING
+ 69. http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm
+ 70. http://www.squid-cache.org/
+ 71. http://p.p/
+ 72. http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info
+ 73. http://p.p/
+ 74. http://p.p/
+ 75. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT
-Privoxy User Manual
-
-By: Privoxy Developers
-
-$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9 Exp $
-
-The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
-Privoxy. Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for
-protecting privacy, filtering web page content, managing cookies, controlling
-access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet Junk.
-Privoxy has a very flexible configuration and can be customized to suit
-individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone
-systems and multi-user networks.
-You can find the latest version of the user manual at http://
-ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Privoxy User Manual
-Table of Contents
+ By: Privoxy Developers
+
+ $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9 Exp $
+
+ The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure
+ and use Privoxy. Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering
+ capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering web page content,
+ managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners,
+ pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet Junk. Privoxy has a very flexible
+ configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and
+ tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and
+ multi-user networks.
+
+ You can find the latest version of the user manual at
+ [1]http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+ Table of Contents
+ 1. [2]Introduction
+
+ 1.1. [3]New Features
+
+ 2. [4]Installation
+
+ 2.1. [5]Source
+ 2.2. [6]Red Hat
+ 2.3. [7]SuSE
+ 2.4. [8]OS/2
+ 2.5. [9]Windows
+ 2.6. [10]Other
+
+ 3. [11]Privoxy Configuration
+
+ 3.1. [12]Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
+ 3.2. [13]Configuration Files Overview
+ 3.3. [14]The Main Configuration File
+
+ 3.3.1. [15]Defining Other Configuration Files
+ 3.3.2. [16]Other Configuration Options
+ 3.3.3. [17]Access Control List (ACL)
+ 3.3.4. [18]Forwarding
+ 3.3.5. [19]Windows GUI Options
+
+ 3.4. [20]The Actions File
+
+ 3.4.1. [21]URL Domain and Path Syntax
+ 3.4.2. [22]Actions
+ 3.4.3. [23]Aliases
+
+ 3.5. [24]The Filter File
+ 3.6. [25]Templates
+
+ 4. [26]Quickstart to Using Privoxy
+
+ 4.1. [27]Command Line Options
+
+ 5. [28]Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+ 6. [29]Copyright and History
+
+ 6.1. [30]License
+ 6.2. [31]History
+
+ 7. [32]See also
+ 8. [33]Appendix
+
+ 8.1. [34]Regular Expressions
+
+ 21
+ 22
+ 23
+ 24
+ 25
+ 26
+ 27
+ 28
+ 29
+
+ 8.2. [35]Privoxy's Internal Pages
+ 8.3. [36]Anatomy of an Action
+
1. Introduction
+
+ Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for
+ protecting privacy, filtering and modifying web page content, managing
+ cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and
+ other obnoxious Internet Junk. Privoxy has a very flexible
+ configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and
+ tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and
+ multi-user networks.
+
+ Privoxy is derived from Internet Junkbuster by Junkbusters
+ Corporation, which is no longer under development. Many enhancements
+ and new features have been added.
+
+ This documentation is included with the current BETA version of
+ Privoxy and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date
+ reference for the time being is still the comments in the source files
+ and in the individual configuration files. Development of version 3.0
+ is currently nearing completion, and includes many significant changes
+ and enhancements over earlier versions. The target release date for
+ stable v3.0 is "soon" ;-)
+
+ Since this is a BETA version, not all new features are well tested.
+ This documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially
+ with CVS sources). And there may be bugs, though hopefully not many!
+ _________________________________________________________________
- 1.1. New Features
+1.1. New Features
+
+ In addition to Internet Junkbuster's traditional feature of ad and
+ banner blocking and cookie management, Privoxy provides new features,
+ some of them currently under development:
+
+ * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility
+ ([37]http://p.p). Browser-based tracing of rule and filter
+ effects.
+ * Blocking of annoying pop-up browser windows.
+ * HTTP/1.1 compliant (most, but not all 1.1 features are supported).
+ * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the
+ configuration files, and generally a more sophisticated and
+ flexible configuration syntax over previous versions.
+ * GIF de-animation.
+ * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size,
+ invisible "web-bugs", JavaScript, pop-ups, status bar abuse, etc.)
+ * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+ * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+ * User-customizable HTML templates (e.g. 404 error page).
+ * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ * Builds from source on most UNIX-like systems. Packages available
+ for: Linux (RedHat, SuSE, or Debian), Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac
+ OSX, OS/2, HP-UX 11 and AmigaOS.
+ * In addition, the configuration is much more powerful and versatile
+ over-all.
+ _________________________________________________________________
2. Installation
+
+ Privoxy is available as raw source code, or pre-compiled binaries. See
+ the [38]Privoxy Home Page for binaries and current release info.
+ Privoxy is also available via [39]CVS. This is the recommended
+ approach at this time. But please be aware that CVS is constantly
+ changing, and it may break in mysterious ways.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- 2.1. Source
- 2.2. Red Hat
- 2.3. SuSE
- 2.4. OS/2
- 2.5. Windows
- 2.6. Other
-
-3. Privoxy Configuration
-
- 3.1. Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
- 3.2. Configuration Files Overview
- 3.3. The Main Configuration File
-
- 3.3.1. Defining Other Configuration Files
- 3.3.2. Other Configuration Options
- 3.3.3. Access Control List (ACL)
- 3.3.4. Forwarding
- 3.3.5. Windows GUI Options
-
- 3.4. The Actions File
-
- 3.4.1. URL Domain and Path Syntax
- 3.4.2. Actions
- 3.4.3. Aliases
-
- 3.5. The Filter File
- 3.6. Templates
-
-4. Quickstart to Using Privoxy
-
- 4.1. Command Line Options
-
-5. Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
-6. Copyright and History
+2.1. Source
+
+ For gzipped tar archives, unpack the source:
- 6.1. License
- 6.2. History
+ tar xzvf privoxy-2.9.13-beta-src* [.tgz or .tar.gz]
+ cd privoxy-2.9.13-beta
+
+ For retrieving the current CVS sources, you'll need the CVS package
+ installed first. To download CVS source:
-7. See also
-8. Appendix
+ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
+ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co cu
+rrent
+ cd current
+
+ This will create a directory named current/, which will contain the
+ source tree.
- 8.1. Regular Expressions
- 8.2. Privoxy's Internal Pages
- 8.3. Anatomy of an Action
+ Then, in either case, to build from tarball/CVS source:
-1. Introduction
-
-Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting
-privacy, filtering and modifying web page content, managing cookies,
-controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious
-Internet Junk. Privoxy has a very flexible configuration and can be customized
-to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for both
-stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.
-
-Privoxy is derived from Internet Junkbuster by Junkbusters Corporation, which
-is no longer under development. Many enhancements and new features have been
-added.
+ ./configure (--help to see options)
+ make (the make from gnu, gmake for *BSD)
+ su
+ make -n install (to see where all the files will go)
+ make install (to really install)
-This documentation is included with the current BETA version of Privoxy and is
-mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the time being
-is still the comments in the source files and in the individual configuration
-files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing completion, and includes
-many significant changes and enhancements over earlier versions. The target
-release date for stable v3.0 is "soon" ;-)
-
-Since this is a BETA version, not all new features are well tested. This
-documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with CVS
-sources). And there may be bugs, though hopefully not many!
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.1. New Features
-
-In addition to Internet Junkbuster's traditional feature of ad and banner
-blocking and cookie management, Privoxy provides new features, some of them
-currently under development:
-
- * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility (http://p.p).
- Browser-based tracing of rule and filter effects.
+ For Redhat and SuSE Linux RPM packages, see below.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * Blocking of annoying pop-up browser windows.
-
- * HTTP/1.1 compliant (most, but not all 1.1 features are supported).
+2.2. Red Hat
+
+ To build Redhat RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
- * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
- and generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
- previous versions.
+ autoheader
+ autoconf
+ ./configure
+ make redhat-dist
+
+ This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places.
+ Example:
- * GIF de-animation.
+ /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
- * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
- "web-bugs", JavaScript, pop-ups, status bar abuse, etc.)
+ /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/privoxy-2.9.11-1.src.rpm
- * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ To install, of course:
- * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+ rpm -Uvv /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
+
+ This will place the Privoxy configuration files in /etc/privoxy/, and
+ log files in /var/log/privoxy/.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+2.3. SuSE
+
+ To build SuSE RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
- * User-customizable HTML templates (e.g. 404 error page).
+ autoheader
+ autoconf
+ ./configure
+ make suse-dist
+
+ This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places.
+ Example:
- * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
- * Builds from source on most UNIX-like systems. Packages available for: Linux
- (RedHat, SuSE, or Debian), Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac OSX, OS/2, HP-UX 11
- and AmigaOS.
+ /usr/src/packages/SRPMS/privoxy-2.9.11-1.src.rpm
- * In addition, the configuration is much more powerful and versatile
- over-all.
+ To install, of course:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-2. Installation
-
-Privoxy is available as raw source code, or pre-compiled binaries. See the
-Privoxy Home Page for binaries and current release info. Privoxy is also
-available via CVS. This is the recommended approach at this time. But please be
-aware that CVS is constantly changing, and it may break in mysterious ways.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-2.1. Source
-
-For gzipped tar archives, unpack the source:
-
- tar xzvf privoxy-2.9.13-beta-src* [.tgz or .tar.gz]
- cd privoxy-2.9.13-beta
-
-
-For retrieving the current CVS sources, you'll need the CVS package installed
-first. To download CVS source:
-
- cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
- cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co current
- cd current
-
-
-This will create a directory named current/, which will contain the source
-tree.
-
-Then, in either case, to build from tarball/CVS source:
-
- ./configure (--help to see options)
- make (the make from gnu, gmake for *BSD)
- su
- make -n install (to see where all the files will go)
- make install (to really install)
-
-
-For Redhat and SuSE Linux RPM packages, see below.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-2.2. Red Hat
-
-To build Redhat RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
-
- autoheader
- autoconf
- ./configure
- make redhat-dist
-
-
-This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
-
- /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
-
- /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/privoxy-2.9.11-1.src.rpm
-
-To install, of course:
-
- rpm -Uvv /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
-
-
-This will place the Privoxy configuration files in /etc/privoxy/, and log files
-in /var/log/privoxy/.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-2.3. SuSE
-
-To build SuSE RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
-
- autoheader
- autoconf
- ./configure
- make suse-dist
-
-
-This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
-
- /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
-
- /usr/src/packages/SRPMS/privoxy-2.9.11-1.src.rpm
-
-To install, of course:
-
- rpm -Uvv /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
-
-
-This will place the Privoxy configuration files in /etc/privoxy/, and log files
-in /var/log/privoxy/.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ rpm -Uvv /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-2.9.11-1.i686.rpm
+ This will place the Privoxy configuration files in /etc/privoxy/, and
+ log files in /var/log/privoxy/.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
2.4. OS/2
-Privoxy is packaged in a WarpIN self- installing archive. The self-installing
-program will be named depending on the release version, something like:
-ijbos2_setup_1.2.3.exe. In order to install it, simply run this executable or
-double-click on its icon and follow the WarpIN installation panels. A shadow of
-the Privoxy executable will be placed in your startup folder so it will start
-automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
-
-The directory you choose to install Privoxy into will contain all of the
-configuration files.
-
-If you would like to build binary images on OS/2 yourself, you will need a few
-Unix-like tools: autoconf, autoheader and sh. These tools will be used to
-create the required config.h file, which is not part of the source distribution
-because it differs based on platform. You will also need a compiler. The
-distribution has been created using IBM VisualAge compilers, but you can use
-any compiler you like. GCC/EMX has the disadvantage of needing to be
-single-threaded due to a limitation of EMX's implementation of the select()
-socket call.
-
-In addition to needing the source code distribution as outlined earlier, you
-will want to extract the os2seutp directory from CVS:
-
- cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
- cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co os2setup
-
-
-This will create a directory named os2setup/, which will contain the
-Makefile.vac makefile and os2build.cmd which is used to completely create the
-binary distribution. The sequence of events for building the executable for
-yourself goes something like this:
-
- cd current
- autoheader
- autoconf
- sh configure
- cd ..\os2setup
- nmake -f Makefile.vac
-
-
-You will see this sequence laid out in os2build.cmd.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Privoxy is packaged in a WarpIN self- installing archive. The
+ self-installing program will be named depending on the release
+ version, something like: ijbos2_setup_1.2.3.exe. In order to install
+ it, simply run this executable or double-click on its icon and follow
+ the WarpIN installation panels. A shadow of the Privoxy executable
+ will be placed in your startup folder so it will start automatically
+ whenever OS/2 starts.
+
+ The directory you choose to install Privoxy into will contain all of
+ the configuration files.
+
+ If you would like to build binary images on OS/2 yourself, you will
+ need a few Unix-like tools: autoconf, autoheader and sh. These tools
+ will be used to create the required config.h file, which is not part
+ of the source distribution because it differs based on platform. You
+ will also need a compiler. The distribution has been created using IBM
+ VisualAge compilers, but you can use any compiler you like. GCC/EMX
+ has the disadvantage of needing to be single-threaded due to a
+ limitation of EMX's implementation of the select() socket call.
+
+ In addition to needing the source code distribution as outlined
+ earlier, you will want to extract the os2seutp directory from CVS:
+ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
+
+ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co os2
+setup
+
+ This will create a directory named os2setup/, which will contain the
+ Makefile.vac makefile and os2build.cmd which is used to completely
+ create the binary distribution. The sequence of events for building
+ the executable for yourself goes something like this:
+ cd current
+ autoheader
+ autoconf
+ sh configure
+ cd ..\os2setup
+ nmake -f Makefile.vac
+
+ You will see this sequence laid out in os2build.cmd.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
2.5. Windows
-Click-click. (I need help on this. Not a clue here. Also for configuration
-section below. HB.)
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Click-click. (I need help on this. Not a clue here. Also for
+ configuration section below. HB.)
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
2.6. Other
-Some quick notes on other Operating Systems.
-
-For FreeBSD (and other *BSDs?), the build will require gmake instead of the
-included make. gmake is available from http://www.gnu.org. The rest should be
-the same as above for Linux/Unix.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Some quick notes on other Operating Systems.
+
+ For FreeBSD (and other *BSDs?), the build will require gmake instead
+ of the included make. gmake is available from [40]http://www.gnu.org.
+ The rest should be the same as above for Linux/Unix.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
3. Privoxy Configuration
-All Privoxy configuration is kept in text files. These files can be edited with
-a text editor. Many important aspects of Privoxy can also be controlled easily
-with a web browser.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ All Privoxy configuration is kept in text files. These files can be
+ edited with a text editor. Many important aspects of Privoxy can also
+ be controlled easily with a web browser.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
3.1. Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
-Privoxy can be reached by the special URL http://p.p/ (or alternately http://
-ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/), which is an internal page. You will see the
-following section:
-
-Please choose from the following options:
-
- * Show information about the current configuration
- * Show the source code version numbers
- * Show the client's request headers.
- * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
- * Toggle Privoxy on or off
- * Edit the actions list
-
-
-
-This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for the
-"actions list", which is where much of the ad, banner, 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. Privoxy will
-automatically detect any changes to these files.
-
-"Toggle Privoxy On or Off" is handy for sites that might have problems with
-your current actions and filters, or just to test if a site misbehaves, whether
-it is Privoxy causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues to run as a proxy
-in this case, but all filtering is disabled.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.2. Configuration Files Overview
+ Privoxy can be reached by the special URL [41]http://p.p/ (or
+ alternately [42]http://www.privoxy.org/config/), which is an internal
+ page. You will see the following section:
+
+Please choose from the following options:
-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 Privoxy executable. The name and number of configuration files
-has changed from previous versions, and is subject to change as development
-progresses.
+ * Show information about the current configuration
+ * Show the source code version numbers
+ * Show the client's request headers.
+ * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
+ * Toggle Privoxy on or off
+ * Edit the actions list
-The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though possibly
-aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are only three default
-configuration files (this will change in time):
- * The main configuration file is named config on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and
- AmigaOS and config.txt on Windows.
+ This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for
+ the "actions list", which is where much of the ad, banner, 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. Privoxy will automatically detect any
+ changes to these files.
- * The default.action file is used to define various "actions" relating to
- images, banners, pop-ups, access restrictions, banners and cookies. There
- is a CGI based editor for this file that can be accessed via http://p.p.
- (Other actions files are included as well with differing levels of
- filtering and blocking, e.g. ijb-basic.action.)
+ "Toggle Privoxy On or Off" is handy for sites that might have problems
+ with your current actions and filters, or just to test if a site
+ misbehaves, whether it is Privoxy causing the problem or not. Privoxy
+ continues to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is
+ disabled.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * The default.filter 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.
-
-default.action and default.filter can use Perl style regular expressions for
-maximum flexibility. All files use the "#" character to denote a comment. Such
-lines are not processed by Privoxy. After making any changes, there is no need
-to restart Privoxy in order for the changes to take effect. Privoxy should
-detect such changes automatically.
-
-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.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+3.2. Configuration Files Overview
+ 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 Privoxy executable. The name and
+ number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and
+ is subject to change as development progresses.
+
+ The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
+ possibly aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are
+ only three default configuration files (this will change in time):
+
+ * The main configuration file is named config on Linux, Unix, BSD,
+ OS/2, and AmigaOS and config.txt on Windows.
+ * The default.action file is used to define various "actions"
+ relating to images, banners, pop-ups, access restrictions, banners
+ and cookies. There is a CGI based editor for this file that can be
+ accessed via [43]http://p.p. (Other actions files are included as
+ well with differing levels of filtering and blocking, e.g.
+ ijb-basic.action.)
+ * The default.filter 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.
+
+ default.action and default.filter can use Perl style regular
+ expressions for maximum flexibility. All files use the "#" character
+ to denote a comment. Such lines are not processed by Privoxy. After
+ making any changes, there is no need to restart Privoxy in order for
+ the changes to take effect. Privoxy should detect such changes
+ automatically.
+
+ 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.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
3.3. The Main Configuration File
-Again, the main configuration file is named config on Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2,
-and config.txt on Windows. Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword
-followed by a list of values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces
-or tabs). For example:
-
- blockfile blocklist.ini
+ Again, the main configuration file is named config on Linux/Unix/BSD
+ and OS/2, and config.txt on Windows. Configuration lines consist of an
+ initial keyword followed by a list of values, all separated by
+ whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For example:
+
+ blockfile blocklist.ini
+
+ Indicates that the blockfile is named "blocklist.ini". (A default
+ installation does not use this.)
+
+ A "#" indicates a comment. Any part of a line following a "#" is
+ ignored, except if the "#" is preceded by a "\".
+
+ Thus, by placing a "#" at the start of an existing configuration line,
+ you can make it a comment and it will be treated as if it weren't
+ there. This is called "commenting out" an option and can be useful to
+ turn off features: If you comment out the "logfile" line, Privoxy will
+ not log to a file at all. Watch for the "default:" section in each
+ explanation to see what happens if the option is left unset (or
+ commented out).
+
+ Long lines can be continued on the next line by using a "\" as the
+ very last character.
+
+ There are various aspects of Privoxy behavior that can be tuned.
+ _________________________________________________________________
-
-Indicates that the blockfile is named "blocklist.ini". (A default installation
-does not use this.)
-
-A "#" indicates a comment. Any part of a line following a "#" is ignored,
-except if the "#" is preceded by a "\".
-
-Thus, by placing a "#" at the start of an existing configuration line, you can
-make it a comment and it will be treated as if it weren't there. This is called
-"commenting out" an option and can be useful to turn off features: If you
-comment out the "logfile" line, Privoxy will not log to a file at all. Watch
-for the "default:" section in each explanation to see what happens if the
-option is left unset (or commented out).
-
-Long lines can be continued on the next line by using a "\" as the very last
-character.
-
-There are various aspects of Privoxy behavior that can be tuned.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
3.3.1. Defining Other Configuration Files
-Privoxy can use a number of other files to tell it what ads to block, what
-cookies to accept, etc. This section of the configuration file tells Privoxy
-where to find all those other files.
-
-On Windows and AmigaOS, Privoxy looks for these files in the same directory as
-the executable. On Unix and OS/2, Privoxy looks for these files in the current
-working directory. In either case, an absolute path name can be used to avoid
-problems.
-
-When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and per-user
-config will be stored in subdirectories of "confdir". For now, only confdir/
-templates is used for storing HTML templates for CGI results.
-
-The location of the configuration files:
-
- confdir /etc/privoxy # No trailing /, please.
+ Privoxy can use a number of other files to tell it what ads to block,
+ what cookies to accept, etc. This section of the configuration file
+ tells Privoxy where to find all those other files.
-
-The directory where all logging (i.e. logfile and jarfile) takes place. No
-trailing "/", please:
-
- logdir /var/log/privoxy
+ On Windows and AmigaOS, Privoxy looks for these files in the same
+ directory as the executable. On Unix and OS/2, Privoxy looks for these
+ files in the current working directory. In either case, an absolute
+ path name can be used to avoid problems.
-
-Note that all file specifications below are relative to the above two
-directories!
-
-The "default.action" file contains patterns to specify the actions to apply to
-requests for each site. Default: Cookies to and from all destinations are kept
-only during the current browser session (i.e. they are not saved to disk).
-Pop-ups are disabled for all sites. All sites are filtered through selected
-sections of "default.filter". No sites are blocked. Privoxy displays a
-checkboard type pattern for filtered ads and other images. The syntax of this
-file is explained in detail below. Other "actions" files are included, and you
-are free to use any of them. They have varying degrees of aggressiveness.
-
- actionsfile default.action
+ When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
+ per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of "confdir". For
+ now, only confdir/templates is used for storing HTML templates for CGI
+ results.
-
-The "default.filter" file contains content modification rules that use "regular
-expressions". These rules permit powerful changes on the content of Web pages,
-e.g., you could disable your favorite JavaScript annoyances, re-write the
-actual displayed text, or just have some fun replacing "Microsoft" with
-"MicroSuck" wherever it appears on a Web page. Default: whatever the developers
-are playing with :-/
-
-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.
-
- filterfile default.filter
+ The location of the configuration files:
-
-The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The logfile
-can be useful for tracking down a problem with Privoxy (e.g., it's not blocking
-an ad you think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look
-at it.
-
-Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to periodically
-remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job (see "man cron").
-For Redhat, a logrotate script has been included.
-
-On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like "/var/log/privoxy.* +1024k 644
-nobody.nogroup" in /etc/logfiles, with the effect that cron.daily will
-automatically archive, gzip, and empty the log, when it exceeds 1M size.
-
-Default: Log to the a file named logfile. Comment out to disable logging.
-
- logfile logfile
+ confdir /etc/privoxy # No trailing /, please.
-
-The "jarfile" defines where Privoxy stores the cookies it intercepts. Note that
-if you use a "jarfile", it may grow quite large. Default: Don't store
-intercepted cookies.
-
- #jarfile jarfile
+ The directory where all logging (i.e. logfile and jarfile) takes
+ place. No trailing "/", please:
-
-If you specify a "trustfile", Privoxy will only allow access to sites that are
-named in the trustfile. You can also mark sites as trusted referrers, with the
-effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a trusted
-referrer was used. The link target will then be added to the "trustfile". This
-is a very restrictive feature that typical users most probably want to leave
-disabled. Default: Disabled, don't use the trust mechanism.
-
- #trustfile trust
+ logdir /var/log/privoxy
-
-If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
-documentation about your blocking policy and to specify the URL(s) here. They
-will appear on the page that your users receive when they try to access
-untrusted content. Use multiple times for multiple URLs. Default: Don't display
-links on the "untrusted" info page.
-
- trust-info-url http://www.your-site.com/why_we_block.html
- trust-info-url http://www.your-site.com/what_we_allow.html
+ Note that all file specifications below are relative to the above two
+ directories!
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.3.2. Other Configuration Options
-
-This part of the configuration file contains options that control how Privoxy
-operates.
-
-"Admin-address" should be set to the email address of the proxy administrator.
-It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages. Default: fill@me.in.please.
-
- #admin-address fill@me.in.please
+ The "default.action" file contains patterns to specify the actions to
+ apply to requests for each site. Default: Cookies to and from all
+ destinations are kept only during the current browser session (i.e.
+ they are not saved to disk). Pop-ups are disabled for all sites. All
+ sites are filtered through selected sections of "default.filter". No
+ sites are blocked. Privoxy displays a checkboard type pattern for
+ filtered ads and other images. The syntax of this file is explained in
+ detail [44]below. Other "actions" files are included, and you are free
+ to use any of them. They have varying degrees of aggressiveness.
-
-"Proxy-info-url" can be set to a URL that contains more info about this Privoxy
-installation, it's configuration and policies. It is used in many of the
-proxy-generated pages and its use is highly recommended in multi-user
-installations, since your users will want to know why certain content is
-blocked or modified. Default: Don't show a link to on-line documentation.
-
- proxy-info-url http://www.your-site.com/proxy.html
+ actionsfile default.action
-
-"Listen-address" specifies the address and port where Privoxy will listen for
-connections from your Web browser. The default is to listen on the localhost
-port 8118, and this is suitable for most users. (In your web browser, under
-proxy configuration, list the proxy server as "localhost" and the port as
-"8118").
-
-If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
-serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
-will need to override the default. The syntax is "listen-address
-[<ip-address>]:<port>". If you leave out the IP address, Privoxy will bind to
-all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
-Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (acl's) (see
-"aclfile" above), or a firewall.
-
-For example, suppose you are running Privoxy on a machine which has the address
-192.168.0.1 on your local private network (192.168.0.0) and has another outside
-connection with a different address. You want it to serve requests from inside
-only:
-
- listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
+ The "default.filter" file contains content modification rules that use
+ "regular expressions". These rules permit powerful changes on the
+ content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite JavaScript
+ annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some fun
+ replacing "Microsoft" with "MicroSuck" wherever it appears on a Web
+ page. Default: whatever the developers are playing with :-/
-
-If you want it to listen on all addresses (including the outside connection):
-
- listen-address :8118
+ 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.
-
-If you do this, consider using ACLs (see "aclfile" above). Note: you will need
-to point your browser(s) to the address and port that you have configured here.
-Default: localhost:8118 (127.0.0.1:8118).
-
-The debug option sets the level of debugging information to log in the logfile
-(and to the console in the Windows version). A debug level of 1 is informative
-because it will show you each request as it happens. Higher levels of debug are
-probably only of interest to developers.
-
- debug 1 # GPC = show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
- debug 2 # CONN = show each connection status
- debug 4 # IO = show I/O status
- debug 8 # HDR = show header parsing
- debug 16 # LOG = log all data into the logfile
- debug 32 # FRC = debug force feature
- debug 64 # REF = debug regular expression filter
- debug 128 # = debug fast redirects
- debug 256 # = debug GIF de-animation
- debug 512 # CLF = Common Log Format
- debug 1024 # = debug kill pop-ups
- debug 4096 # INFO = Startup banner and warnings.
- debug 8192 # ERROR = Non-fatal errors
-
-
-It is highly recommended that you enable ERROR reporting (debug 8192), at least
-until v3.0 is released.
-
-The reporting of FATAL errors (i.e. ones which crash Privoxy) is always on and
-cannot be disabled.
-
-If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set "debug 512" ONLY, do
-not enable anything else.
-
-Multiple "debug" directives, are OK - they're logical-OR'd together.
-
- debug 15 # same as setting the first 4 listed above
+ filterfile default.filter
-
-Default:
-
- debug 1 # URLs
- debug 4096 # Info
- debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*
+ The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The
+ logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with Privoxy (e.g.,
+ it's not blocking an ad you think it should block) but in most cases
+ you probably will never look at it.
-
-Privoxy normally uses "multi-threading", a software technique that permits it
-to handle many different requests simultaneously. In some cases you may wish to
-disable this -- particularly if you're trying to debug a problem. The
-"single-threaded" option forces Privoxy to handle requests sequentially.
-Default: Multi-threaded mode.
-
- #single-threaded
+ Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
+ periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron
+ job (see "man cron"). For Redhat, a logrotate script has been
+ included.
-
-"toggle" allows you to temporarily disable all Privoxy's filtering. Just set
-"toggle 0".
-
-The Windows version of Privoxy puts an icon in the system tray, which also
-allows you to change this option. If you right-click on that icon (or select
-the "Options" menu), one choice is "Enable". Clicking on enable toggles Privoxy
-on and off. This is useful if you want to temporarily disable Privoxy, e.g., to
-access a site that requires cookies which you would otherwise have blocked.
-This can also be toggled via a web browser at the Privoxy internal address of
-http://p.p on any platform.
-
-"toggle 1" means Privoxy runs normally, "toggle 0" means that Privoxy becomes a
-non-anonymizing non-blocking proxy. Default: 1 (on).
-
- toggle 1
+ On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like "/var/log/privoxy.*
+ +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup" in /etc/logfiles, with the effect that
+ cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the log, when
+ it exceeds 1M size.
-
-For content filtering, i.e. the "+filter" and "+deanimate-gif" actions, it is
-necessary that Privoxy buffers the entire document body. This can be
-potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending data indefinitely
-and wait for your RAM to exhaust. With nasty consequences.
-
-The buffer-limit option lets you set the maximum size in Kbytes that each
-buffer may use. When the documents buffer exceeds this size, it is flushed to
-the client unfiltered and no further attempt to filter the rest of it is made.
-Remember that there may multiple threads running, which might require
-increasing the "buffer-limit" Kbytes each, unless you have enabled
-"single-threaded" above.
-
- buffer-limit 4069
+ Default: Log to the a file named logfile. Comment out to disable
+ logging.
-
-To enable the web-based default.action file editor set enable-edit-actions to
-1, or 0 to disable. Note that you must have compiled Privoxy with support for
-this feature, otherwise this option has no effect. This internal page can be
-reached at http://p.p.
-
-Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can edit the
-actions file, and their changes will affect all users. For shared proxies, you
-probably want to disable this. Default: enabled.
-
- enable-edit-actions 1
+ logfile logfile
-
-Allow Privoxy to be toggled on and off remotely, using your web browser. Set
-"enable-remote-toggle"to 1 to enable, and 0 to disable. Note that you must have
-compiled Privoxy with support for this feature, otherwise this option has no
-effect.
-
-Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can toggle it
-on or off (see http://p.p), and their changes will affect all users. For shared
-proxies, you probably want to disable this. Default: enabled.
-
- enable-remote-toggle 1
+ The "jarfile" defines where Privoxy stores the cookies it intercepts.
+ Note that if you use a "jarfile", it may grow quite large. Default:
+ Don't store intercepted cookies.
+ #jarfile jarfile
+
+ If you specify a "trustfile", Privoxy will only allow access to sites
+ that are named in the trustfile. You can also mark sites as trusted
+ referrers, with the effect that access to untrusted sites will be
+ granted, if a link from a trusted referrer was used. The link target
+ will then be added to the "trustfile". This is a very restrictive
+ feature that typical users most probably want to leave disabled.
+ Default: Disabled, don't use the trust mechanism.
+
+ #trustfile trust
+
+ If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some
+ on-line documentation about your blocking policy and to specify the
+ URL(s) here. They will appear on the page that your users receive when
+ they try to access untrusted content. Use multiple times for multiple
+ URLs. Default: Don't display links on the "untrusted" info page.
+
+ trust-info-url http://www.your-site.com/why_we_block.html
+ trust-info-url http://www.your-site.com/what_we_allow.html
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+3.3.2. Other Configuration Options
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ This part of the configuration file contains options that control how
+ Privoxy operates.
+
+ "Admin-address" should be set to the email address of the proxy
+ administrator. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages.
+ Default: fill@me.in.please.
+
+ #admin-address fill@me.in.please
+
+ "Proxy-info-url" can be set to a URL that contains more info about
+ this Privoxy installation, it's configuration and policies. It is used
+ in many of the proxy-generated pages and its use is highly recommended
+ in multi-user installations, since your users will want to know why
+ certain content is blocked or modified. Default: Don't show a link to
+ on-line documentation.
+
+ proxy-info-url http://www.your-site.com/proxy.html
+
+ "Listen-address" specifies the address and port where Privoxy will
+ listen for connections from your Web browser. The default is to listen
+ on the localhost port 8118, and this is suitable for most users. (In
+ your web browser, under proxy configuration, list the proxy server as
+ "localhost" and the port as "8118").
+
+ If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you
+ want to serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local
+ network) as well, you will need to override the default. The syntax is
+ "listen-address [<ip-address>]:<port>". If you leave out the IP
+ address, Privoxy will bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your
+ machine and may become reachable from the Internet. In that case,
+ consider using access control lists (acl's) (see "aclfile" above), or
+ a firewall.
+
+ For example, suppose you are running Privoxy on a machine which has
+ the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network (192.168.0.0)
+ and has another outside connection with a different address. You want
+ it to serve requests from inside only:
+
+ listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
+
+ If you want it to listen on all addresses (including the outside
+ connection):
+
+ listen-address :8118
+
+ If you do this, consider using ACLs (see "aclfile" above). Note: you
+ will need to point your browser(s) to the address and port that you
+ have configured here. Default: localhost:8118 (127.0.0.1:8118).
+
+ The debug option sets the level of debugging information to log in the
+ logfile (and to the console in the Windows version). A debug level of
+ 1 is informative because it will show you each request as it happens.
+ Higher levels of debug are probably only of interest to developers.
+
+ debug 1 # GPC = show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
+ debug 2 # CONN = show each connection status
+ debug 4 # IO = show I/O status
+ debug 8 # HDR = show header parsing
+ debug 16 # LOG = log all data into the logfile
+ debug 32 # FRC = debug force feature
+ debug 64 # REF = debug regular expression filter
+ debug 128 # = debug fast redirects
+ debug 256 # = debug GIF de-animation
+ debug 512 # CLF = Common Log Format
+ debug 1024 # = debug kill pop-ups
+ debug 4096 # INFO = Startup banner and warnings.
+ debug 8192 # ERROR = Non-fatal errors
+
+ It is highly recommended that you enable ERROR reporting (debug 8192),
+ at least until v3.0 is released.
+
+ The reporting of FATAL errors (i.e. ones which crash Privoxy) is
+ always on and cannot be disabled.
+
+ If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set "debug 512"
+ ONLY, do not enable anything else.
+
+ Multiple "debug" directives, are OK - they're logical-OR'd together.
+
+ debug 15 # same as setting the first 4 listed above
+
+ Default:
+
+ debug 1 # URLs
+ debug 4096 # Info
+ debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*
+
+ Privoxy normally uses "multi-threading", a software technique that
+ permits it to handle many different requests simultaneously. In some
+ cases you may wish to disable this -- particularly if you're trying to
+ debug a problem. The "single-threaded" option forces Privoxy to handle
+ requests sequentially. Default: Multi-threaded mode.
+
+ #single-threaded
+
+ "toggle" allows you to temporarily disable all Privoxy's filtering.
+ Just set "toggle 0".
+
+ The Windows version of Privoxy puts an icon in the system tray, which
+ also allows you to change this option. If you right-click on that icon
+ (or select the "Options" menu), one choice is "Enable". Clicking on
+ enable toggles Privoxy on and off. This is useful if you want to
+ temporarily disable Privoxy, e.g., to access a site that requires
+ cookies which you would otherwise have blocked. This can also be
+ toggled via a web browser at the Privoxy internal address of
+ [45]http://p.p on any platform.
+
+ "toggle 1" means Privoxy runs normally, "toggle 0" means that Privoxy
+ becomes a non-anonymizing non-blocking proxy. Default: 1 (on).
+
+ toggle 1
+
+ For content filtering, i.e. the "+filter" and "+deanimate-gif"
+ actions, it is necessary that Privoxy buffers the entire document
+ body. This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just
+ keep sending data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust. With
+ nasty consequences.
+
+ The buffer-limit option lets you set the maximum size in Kbytes that
+ each buffer may use. When the documents buffer exceeds this size, it
+ is flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to filter
+ the rest of it is made. Remember that there may multiple threads
+ running, which might require increasing the "buffer-limit" Kbytes
+ each, unless you have enabled "single-threaded" above.
+
+ buffer-limit 4069
+
+ To enable the web-based default.action file editor set
+ enable-edit-actions to 1, or 0 to disable. Note that you must have
+ compiled Privoxy with support for this feature, otherwise this option
+ has no effect. This internal page can be reached at [46]http://p.p.
+
+ Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can
+ edit the actions file, and their changes will affect all users. For
+ shared proxies, you probably want to disable this. Default: enabled.
+
+ enable-edit-actions 1
+
+ Allow Privoxy to be toggled on and off remotely, using your web
+ browser. Set "enable-remote-toggle"to 1 to enable, and 0 to disable.
+ Note that you must have compiled Privoxy with support for this
+ feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
+
+ Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can
+ toggle it on or off (see [47]http://p.p), and their changes will
+ affect all users. For shared proxies, you probably want to disable
+ this. Default: enabled.
+
+ enable-remote-toggle 1
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
3.3.3. Access Control List (ACL)
-Access controls are included at the request of some ISPs and systems
-administrators, and are not usually needed by individual users. Please note the
-warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute for a
-firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security weaknesses.
-
-If no access settings are specified, the proxy talks to anyone that connects.
-If any access settings file are specified, then the proxy talks only to IP
-addresses permitted somewhere in this file and not denied later in this file.
-
-Summary -- if using an ACL:
-
-Client must have permission to receive service.
-
-LAST match in ACL wins.
-
-Default behavior is to deny service.
-
-The syntax for an entry in the Access Control List is:
-
- ACTION SRC_ADDR[/SRC_MASKLEN] [ DST_ADDR[/DST_MASKLEN] ]
+ Access controls are included at the request of some ISPs and systems
+ administrators, and are not usually needed by individual users. Please
+ note the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a
+ substitute for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing
+ basic security weaknesses.
-
-Where the individual fields are:
-
- ACTION = "permit-access" or "deny-access"
-
- SRC_ADDR = client hostname or dotted IP address
- SRC_MASKLEN = number of bits in the subnet mask for the source
-
- DST_ADDR = server or forwarder hostname or dotted IP address
- DST_MASKLEN = number of bits in the subnet mask for the target
+ If no access settings are specified, the proxy talks to anyone that
+ connects. If any access settings file are specified, then the proxy
+ talks only to IP addresses permitted somewhere in this file and not
+ denied later in this file.
-
-The field separator (FS) is whitespace (space or tab).
-
-IMPORTANT NOTE: If Privoxy is using a forwarder (see below) or a gateway for a
-particular destination URL, the DST_ADDR that is examined is the address of the
-forwarder or the gateway and NOT the address of the ultimate target. This is
-necessary because it may be impossible for the local Privoxy to determine the
-address of the ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
-
-Here are a few examples to show how the ACL features work:
-
-"localhost" is OK -- no DST_ADDR implies that ALL destination addresses are OK:
-
- permit-access localhost
+ Summary -- if using an ACL:
-
-A silly example to illustrate permitting any host on the class-C subnet with
-Privoxy to go anywhere:
-
- permit-access www.privoxy.com/24
+ Client must have permission to receive service.
-
-Except deny one particular IP address from using it at all:
-
- deny-access ident.privoxy.com
+ LAST match in ACL wins.
-
-You can also specify an explicit network address and subnet mask. Explicit
-addresses do not have to be resolved to be used.
-
- permit-access 207.153.200.0/24
+ Default behavior is to deny service.
-
-A subnet mask of 0 matches anything, so the next line permits everyone.
-
- permit-access 0.0.0.0/0
+ The syntax for an entry in the Access Control List is:
-
-Note, you cannot say:
-
- permit-access .org
+ ACTION SRC_ADDR[/SRC_MASKLEN] [ DST_ADDR[/DST_MASKLEN] ]
-
-to allow all *.org domains. Every IP address listed must resolve fully.
-
-An ISP may want to provide a Privoxy that is accessible by "the world" and yet
-restrict use of some of their private content to hosts on its internal network
-(i.e. its own subscribers). Say, for instance the ISP owns the Class-B IP
-address block 123.124.0.0 (a 16 bit netmask). This is how they could do it:
-
- permit-access 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 # other clients can go anywhere
- # with the following exceptions:
-
- deny-access 0.0.0.0/0 123.124.0.0/16 # block all external requests for
- # sites on the ISP's network
-
- permit 0.0.0.0/0 www.my_isp.com # except for the ISP's main
- # web site
-
- permit 123.124.0.0/16 0.0.0.0/0 # the ISP's clients can go
- # anywhere
+ Where the individual fields are:
+
+ ACTION = "permit-access" or "deny-access"
+ SRC_ADDR = client hostname or dotted IP address
+ SRC_MASKLEN = number of bits in the subnet mask for the source
+ DST_ADDR = server or forwarder hostname or dotted IP address
+ DST_MASKLEN = number of bits in the subnet mask for the target
+
+ The field separator (FS) is whitespace (space or tab).
+
+ IMPORTANT NOTE: If Privoxy is using a forwarder (see below) or a
+ gateway for a particular destination URL, the DST_ADDR that is
+ examined is the address of the forwarder or the gateway and NOT the
+ address of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be
+ impossible for the local Privoxy to determine the address of the
+ ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
+
+ Here are a few examples to show how the ACL features work:
+
+ "localhost" is OK -- no DST_ADDR implies that ALL destination
+ addresses are OK:
+
+ permit-access localhost
+
+ A silly example to illustrate permitting any host on the class-C
+ subnet with Privoxy to go anywhere:
+
+ permit-access www.privoxy.com/24
+
+ Except deny one particular IP address from using it at all:
+
+ deny-access ident.privoxy.com
+
+ You can also specify an explicit network address and subnet mask.
+ Explicit addresses do not have to be resolved to be used.
+
+ permit-access 207.153.200.0/24
+
+ A subnet mask of 0 matches anything, so the next line permits
+ everyone.
+
+ permit-access 0.0.0.0/0
+
+ Note, you cannot say:
+
+ permit-access .org
+
+ to allow all *.org domains. Every IP address listed must resolve
+ fully.
+
+ An ISP may want to provide a Privoxy that is accessible by "the world"
+ and yet restrict use of some of their private content to hosts on its
+ internal network (i.e. its own subscribers). Say, for instance the ISP
+ owns the Class-B IP address block 123.124.0.0 (a 16 bit netmask). This
+ is how they could do it:
+
+ permit-access 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 # other clients can go anywhere
+ # with the following exceptions
+ :
+
+ deny-access 0.0.0.0/0 123.124.0.0/16 # block all external request
+ s for
+ # sites on the ISP's network
+ permit 0.0.0.0/0 www.my_isp.com # except for the ISP's main
+ # web site
+ permit 123.124.0.0/16 0.0.0.0/0 # the ISP's clients can go
+ # anywhere
+
+ Note that if some hostnames are listed with multiple IP addresses, the
+ primary value returned by DNS (via gethostbyname()) is used. Default:
+ Anyone can access the proxy.
+ _________________________________________________________________
-
-Note that if some hostnames are listed with multiple IP addresses, the primary
-value returned by DNS (via gethostbyname()) is used. Default: Anyone can access
-the proxy.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
3.3.4. Forwarding
-This feature allows chaining of HTTP requests via multiple proxies. It can be
-used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when accessing specific
-domains by routing requests to those domains to a special purpose filtering
-proxy such as lpwa.com. Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing.
-
-It can also be used in an environment with multiple networks to route requests
-via multiple gateways allowing transparent access to multiple networks without
-having to modify browser configurations.
-
-Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. Privoxy SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A. The
-difference is that SOCKS 4A will resolve the target hostname using DNS on the
-SOCKS server, not our local DNS client.
-
-The syntax of each line is:
-
- forward target_domain[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]
- forward-socks4 target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:
-port]
- forward-socks4a target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:
-port]
+ This feature allows chaining of HTTP requests via multiple proxies. It
+ can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
+ accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains to a
+ special purpose filtering proxy such as lpwa.com. Or to use a caching
+ proxy to speed up browsing.
-
-If http_proxy_host is ".", then requests are not forwarded to a HTTP proxy but
-are made directly to the web servers.
-
-Lines are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
-
-There is an implicit line equivalent to the following, which specifies that
-anything not finding a match on the list is to go out without forwarding or
-gateway protocol, like so:
-
- forward .* . # implicit
+ It can also be used in an environment with multiple networks to route
+ requests via multiple gateways allowing transparent access to multiple
+ networks without having to modify browser configurations.
-
-In the following common configuration, everything goes to Lucent's LPWA, except
-SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
-
- forward .* lpwa.com:8000
- forward :443 .
+ Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. Privoxy SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A.
+ The difference is that SOCKS 4A will resolve the target hostname using
+ DNS on the SOCKS server, not our local DNS client.
-
-Some users have reported difficulties related to LPWA's use of "." as the last
-element of the domain, and have said that this can be fixed with this:
-
- forward lpwa. lpwa.com:8000
+ The syntax of each line is:
-
-(NOTE: the syntax for specifying target_domain has changed since the previous
-paragraph was written -- it will not work now. More information is welcome.)
-
-In this fictitious example, everything goes via an ISP's caching proxy, except
-requests to that ISP:
-
- forward .* caching.myisp.net:8000
- forward myisp.net .
+ forward target_domain[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]
+ forward-socks4 target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port]
+ http_proxy_host[:port]
+ forward-socks4a target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port]
+ http_proxy_host[:port]
-
-For the @home network, we're told the forwarding configuration is this:
-
- forward .* proxy:8080
+ If http_proxy_host is ".", then requests are not forwarded to a HTTP
+ proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
-
-Also, we're told they insist on getting cookies and JavaScript, so you should
-allow cookies from home.com. We consider JavaScript a potential security risk.
-Java need not be enabled.
-
-In this example direct connections are made to all "internal" domains, but
-everything else goes through Lucent's LPWA by way of the company's SOCKS
-gateway to the Internet.
-
- forward-socks4 .* lpwa.com:8000 firewall.my_company.com:1080
- forward my_company.com .
+ Lines are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
-
-This is how you could set up a site that always uses SOCKS but no forwarders:
-
- forward-socks4a .* . firewall.my_company.com:1080
+ There is an implicit line equivalent to the following, which specifies
+ that anything not finding a match on the list is to go out without
+ forwarding or gateway protocol, like so:
-
-An advanced example for network administrators:
-
-If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content to
-their subscribers, you can configure forwarding to pass requests to the
-specific host that's connected to that ISP so that everybody can see all of the
-content on all of the ISPs.
-
-This is a bit tricky, but here's an example:
-
-host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.com. And host-b has a PPP connection to
-isp-b.com. host-a can run a Privoxy proxy with forwarding like this:
-
- forward .* .
- forward isp-b.com host-b:8118
+ forward .* . # implicit
-
-host-b can run a Privoxy proxy with forwarding like this:
-
- forward .* .
- forward isp-a.com host-a:8118
+ In the following common configuration, everything goes to Lucent's
+ LPWA, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
-
-Now, anyone on the Internet (including users on host-a and host-b) can set
-their browser's proxy to either host-a or host-b and be able to browse the
-content on isp-a or isp-b.
-
-Here's another practical example, for University of Kent at Canterbury students
-with a network connection in their room, who need to use the University's Squid
-web cache.
-
- forward *. ssbcache.ukc.ac.uk:3128 # Use the proxy, except for:
- forward .ukc.ac.uk . # Anything on the same domain as us
- forward * . # Host with no domain specified
- forward 129.12.*.* . # A dotted IP on our /16 network.
- forward 127.*.*.* . # Loopback address
- forward localhost.localdomain . # Loopback address
- forward www.ukc.mirror.ac.uk . # Specific host
+ forward .* lpwa.com:8000
+ forward :443 .
-
-If you intend to chain Privoxy and squid locally, then chain as browser ->
-squid -> privoxy is the recommended way.
-
-Your squid configuration could then look like this:
-
- # Define Privoxy as parent cache
-
- cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 0 no-query
-
- # Define ACL for protocol FTP
- acl FTP proto FTP
-
- # Do not forward ACL FTP to privoxy
- always_direct allow FTP
-
- # Do not forward ACL CONNECT (https) to privoxy
- always_direct allow CONNECT
-
- # Forward the rest to privoxy
- never_direct allow all
+ Some users have reported difficulties related to LPWA's use of "." as
+ the last element of the domain, and have said that this can be fixed
+ with this:
+
+ forward lpwa. lpwa.com:8000
+
+ (NOTE: the syntax for specifying target_domain has changed since the
+ previous paragraph was written -- it will not work now. More
+ information is welcome.)
+
+ In this fictitious example, everything goes via an ISP's caching
+ proxy, except requests to that ISP:
+
+ forward .* caching.myisp.net:8000
+ forward myisp.net .
+
+ For the @home network, we're told the forwarding configuration is
+ this:
+
+ forward .* proxy:8080
+
+ Also, we're told they insist on getting cookies and JavaScript, so you
+ should allow cookies from home.com. We consider JavaScript a potential
+ security risk. Java need not be enabled.
+
+ In this example direct connections are made to all "internal" domains,
+ but everything else goes through Lucent's LPWA by way of the company's
+ SOCKS gateway to the Internet.
+
+ forward-socks4 .* lpwa.com:8000 firewall.my_company.com:1080
+ forward my_company.com .
+
+ This is how you could set up a site that always uses SOCKS but no
+ forwarders:
+
+ forward-socks4a .* . firewall.my_company.com:1080
+
+ An advanced example for network administrators:
+
+ If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special
+ content to their subscribers, you can configure forwarding to pass
+ requests to the specific host that's connected to that ISP so that
+ everybody can see all of the content on all of the ISPs.
+
+ This is a bit tricky, but here's an example:
+
+ host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.com. And host-b has a PPP
+ connection to isp-b.com. host-a can run a Privoxy proxy with
+ forwarding like this:
+
+ forward .* .
+ forward isp-b.com host-b:8118
+
+ host-b can run a Privoxy proxy with forwarding like this:
+
+ forward .* .
+ forward isp-a.com host-a:8118
+
+ Now, anyone on the Internet (including users on host-a and host-b) can
+ set their browser's proxy to either host-a or host-b and be able to
+ browse the content on isp-a or isp-b.
+
+ Here's another practical example, for University of Kent at Canterbury
+ students with a network connection in their room, who need to use the
+ University's Squid web cache.
+
+ forward *. ssbcache.ukc.ac.uk:3128 # Use the proxy, except for:
+ forward .ukc.ac.uk . # Anything on the same domain as us
+ forward * . # Host with no domain specified
+ forward 129.12.*.* . # A dotted IP on our /16 network.
+ forward 127.*.*.* . # Loopback address
+ forward localhost.localdomain . # Loopback address
+ forward www.ukc.mirror.ac.uk . # Specific host
+
+ If you intend to chain Privoxy and squid locally, then chain as
+ browser -> squid -> privoxy is the recommended way.
+
+ Your squid configuration could then look like this:
+
+ # Define Privoxy as parent cache
+
+ cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 0 no-query
+
+ # Define ACL for protocol FTP
+ acl FTP proto FTP
+ # Do not forward ACL FTP to privoxy
+ always_direct allow FTP
+ # Do not forward ACL CONNECT (https) to privoxy
+ always_direct allow CONNECT
+ # Forward the rest to privoxy
+ never_direct allow all
+ _________________________________________________________________
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
3.3.5. Windows GUI Options
-Privoxy has a number of options specific to the Windows GUI interface:
-
-If "activity-animation" is set to 1, the Privoxy icon will animate when
-"Privoxy" is active. To turn off, set to 0.
-
- activity-animation 1
+ Privoxy has a number of options specific to the Windows GUI interface:
-
-If "log-messages" is set to 1, Privoxy will log messages to the console window:
-
- log-messages 1
+ If "activity-animation" is set to 1, the Privoxy icon will animate
+ when "Privoxy" is active. To turn off, set to 0.
-
-If "log-buffer-size" is set to 1, the size of the log buffer, i.e. the amount
-of memory used for the log messages displayed in the console window, will be
-limited to "log-max-lines" (see below).
-
-Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and eat
-up all your memory!
-
- log-buffer-size 1
+ activity-animation 1
-
-log-max-lines is the maximum number of lines held in the log buffer. See above.
-
- log-max-lines 200
+ If "log-messages" is set to 1, Privoxy will log messages to the
+ console window:
-
-If "log-highlight-messages" is set to 1, Privoxy will highlight portions of the
-log messages with a bold-faced font:
-
- log-highlight-messages 1
+ log-messages 1
-
-The font used in the console window:
-
- log-font-name Comic Sans MS
+ If "log-buffer-size" is set to 1, the size of the log buffer, i.e. the
+ amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the console
+ window, will be limited to "log-max-lines" (see below).
-
-Font size used in the console window:
-
- log-font-size 8
+ Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow
+ infinitely and eat up all your memory!
-
-"show-on-task-bar" controls whether or not Privoxy will appear as a button on
-the Task bar when minimized:
-
- show-on-task-bar 0
+ log-buffer-size 1
-
-If "close-button-minimizes" is set to 1, the Windows close button will minimize
-Privoxy instead of closing the program (close with the exit option on the File
-menu).
-
- close-button-minimizes 1
+ log-max-lines is the maximum number of lines held in the log buffer.
+ See above.
-
-The "hide-console" option is specific to the MS-Win console version of Privoxy.
-If this option is used, Privoxy will disconnect from and hide the command
-console.
-
- #hide-console
+ log-max-lines 200
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.4. The Actions File
-
-The "default.action" file (formerly actionsfile or ijb.action) is used to
-define what actions Privoxy takes, and thus determines how images, cookies and
-various other aspects of HTTP content and transactions are handled. Images can
-be anything you want, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious URL that
-you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or accepted only
-during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk). Changes to
-default.action should be immediately visible to Privoxy without the need to
-restart.
-
-The easiest way to edit "actions" file is with a browser by loading http://p.p/
-, and then select "Edit Actions List". A text editor can also be used.
-
-To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
-compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
-applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated. You can trace this
-process by visiting http://p.p/show-url-info.
-
-There are four types of lines in this file: comments (begin with a "#"
-character), actions, aliases and patterns, all of which are explained below, as
-well as the configuration file syntax that Privoxy understands.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.4.1. URL Domain and Path Syntax
-
-Generally, a pattern has the form <domain>/<path>, where both the <domain> and
-<path> part are optional. If you only specify a domain part, the "/" can be
-left out:
-
-www.example.com - is a domain only pattern and will match any request to
-"www.example.com".
-
-www.example.com/ - means exactly the same.
-
-www.example.com/index.html - matches only the single document "/index.html" on
-"www.example.com".
-
-/index.html - matches the document "/index.html", regardless of the domain.
-
-index.html - matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name
-and there is no top-level domain called ".html".
-
-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. For example:
-
-.example.com - matches any domain that ENDS in ".example.com".
-
-www. - matches any domain that STARTS with "www".
-
-Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
-themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: "*" stands for zero
-or more arbitrary characters, "?" stands for any single character. And you can
-define character classes in square brackets and they can be freely mixed:
-
-ad*.example.com - matches "adserver.example.com", "ads.example.com", etc but
-not "sfads.example.com".
-
-*ad*.example.com - matches all of the above, and then some.
-
-.?pix.com - matches "www.ipix.com", "pictures.epix.com", "a.b.c.d.e.upix.com",
-etc.
-
-www[1-9a-ez].example.com - matches "www1.example.com", "www4.example.com",
-"wwwd.example.com", "wwwz.example.com", etc., but not "wwww.example.com".
-
-If Privoxy was compiled with "pcre" support (default), Perl compatible regular
-expressions can be used. See the pcre/docs/ directory or "man perlre" (also
-available on http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html) for details. A
-brief discussion of regular expressions is in the Appendix. For instance:
-
-/.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpe?g - would match a URL from any domain, with any path that
-includes "advert" followed immediately by one or more digits, then a "." and
-ending in either "jpeg" or "jpg". So we match "example.com/ads/advert2.jpg",
-and "www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.jpeg", but not "www.example.com/ads/
-banners/advert39.gif" (no gifs in the example pattern).
-
-Please 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 "(?-i)"
-switch:
-
-www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* - will match only documents whose path starts
-with "PaTtErN" in exactly this capitalization.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.4.2. Actions
-
-Actions are enabled if preceded with a "+", and disabled if preceded with a
-"-". Actions are invoked by enclosing the action name in curly braces (e.g.
-{+some_action}), followed by a list of URLs to which the action applies. There
-are three classes of actions:
-
- * Boolean (e.g. "+/-block"):
+ If "log-highlight-messages" is set to 1, Privoxy will highlight
+ portions of the log messages with a bold-faced font:
- {+name} # enable this action
- {-name} # disable this action
-
+ log-highlight-messages 1
- * parameterized (e.g. "+/-hide-user-agent"):
+ The font used in the console window:
- {+name{param}} # enable action and set parameter to "param"
- {-name} # disable action
-
+ log-font-name Comic Sans MS
- * Multi-value (e.g. "{+/-add-header{Name: value}}", "{+/-wafer{name=value}}
- "):
+ Font size used in the console window:
- {+name{param}} # enable action and add parameter "param"
- {-name{param}} # remove the parameter "param"
- {-name} # disable this action totally
-
+ log-font-size 8
-If nothing is specified in this file, no "actions" are taken. So in this case
-Privoxy would just be a normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must
-specifically enable the privacy and blocking features you need (although the
-provided default default.action file will give a good starting point).
-
-Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. For multi-valued actions,
-the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
+ "show-on-task-bar" controls whether or not Privoxy will appear as a
+ button on the Task bar when minimized:
+
+ show-on-task-bar 0
+
+ If "close-button-minimizes" is set to 1, the Windows close button will
+ minimize Privoxy instead of closing the program (close with the exit
+ option on the File menu).
+
+ close-button-minimizes 1
+
+ The "hide-console" option is specific to the MS-Win console version of
+ Privoxy. If this option is used, Privoxy will disconnect from and hide
+ the command console.
+
+ #hide-console
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+3.4. The Actions File
-The list of valid Privoxy "actions" are:
+ The "default.action" file (formerly actionsfile or ijb.action) is used
+ to define what actions Privoxy takes, and thus determines how images,
+ cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and transactions are
+ handled. Images can be anything you want, including ads, banners, or
+ just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be
+ accepted or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser
+ session (i.e. not written to disk). Changes to default.action should
+ be immediately visible to Privoxy without the need to restart.
+
+ The easiest way to edit "actions" file is with a browser by loading
+ [48]http://p.p/, and then select "Edit Actions List". A text editor
+ can also be used.
+
+ To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request
+ is compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the
+ list of applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated. You
+ can trace this process by visiting [49]http://p.p/show-url-info.
+
+ There are four types of lines in this file: comments (begin with a "#"
+ character), actions, aliases and patterns, all of which are explained
+ below, as well as the configuration file syntax that Privoxy
+ understands.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+3.4.1. URL Domain and Path Syntax
- * Add the specified HTTP header, which is not checked for validity. You may
- specify this many times to specify many different headers:
+ Generally, a pattern has the form <domain>/<path>, where both the
+ <domain> and <path> part are optional. If you only specify a domain
+ part, the "/" can be left out:
- +add-header{Name: value}
-
+ www.example.com - is a domain only pattern and will match any request
+ to "www.example.com".
- * Block this URL totally. In a default installation, a "blocked" URL will
- result in bright red banner that says "BLOCKED", with a reason why it is
- being blocked.
+ www.example.com/ - means exactly the same.
- +block
-
+ www.example.com/index.html - matches only the single document
+ "/index.html" on "www.example.com".
- * De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
- This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
- the option "first" is given, the first frame of the animation is used as
- the replacement. If "last" is given, the last frame of the animation is
- used instead, which probably makes more sense for most banner animations,
- but also has the risk of not showing the entire last frame (if it is only a
- delta to an earlier frame).
+ /index.html - matches the document "/index.html", regardless of the
+ domain.
- +deanimate-gifs{last}
- +deanimate-gifs{first}
-
+ index.html - matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a
+ domain name and there is no top-level domain called ".html".
- * "+downgrade" will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to HTTP/1.0 and
- downgrade the responses as well. Use this action for servers that use HTTP/
- 1.1 protocol features that Privoxy doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1 is
- only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests.
+ 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.
+ For example:
- +downgrade
-
+ .example.com - matches any domain that ENDS in ".example.com".
- * Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
- will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
- parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs resulting
- from this scheme typically look like: http://some.place/some_script?http://
- some.where-else.
+ www. - matches any domain that STARTS with "www".
- Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
- URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
- since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go to.
- Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your browser
- ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds the
- advertisers.
+ Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain
+ names themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: "*"
+ stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, "?" stands for any
+ single character. And you can define character classes in square
+ brackets and they can be freely mixed:
- The "+fast-redirects" option enables interception of these requests by
- Privoxy, who will cut off all but the last valid URL in the request and
- send a local redirect back to your browser without contacting the remote
- site.
+ ad*.example.com - matches "adserver.example.com", "ads.example.com",
+ etc but not "sfads.example.com".
- +fast-redirects
-
+ *ad*.example.com - matches all of the above, and then some.
- * Apply the filters in the section_header section of the default.filter file
- to the site(s). default.filter sections are grouped according to like
- functionality.
+ .?pix.com - matches "www.ipix.com", "pictures.epix.com",
+ "a.b.c.d.e.upix.com", etc.
- +filter{section_header}
-
+ www[1-9a-ez].example.com - matches "www1.example.com",
+ "www4.example.com", "wwwd.example.com", "wwwz.example.com", etc., but
+ not "wwww.example.com".
- Filter sections that are pre-defined in the supplied default.filter
- include:
+ If Privoxy was compiled with "pcre" support (default), Perl compatible
+ regular expressions can be used. See the pcre/docs/ directory or "man
+ perlre" (also available on
+ [50]http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html) for details. A
+ brief discussion of regular expressions is in the [51]Appendix. For
+ instance:
- html-annoyances: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
+ /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpe?g - would match a URL from any domain, with any
+ path that includes "advert" followed immediately by one or more
+ digits, then a "." and ending in either "jpeg" or "jpg". So we match
+ "example.com/ads/advert2.jpg", and
+ "www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.jpeg", but not
+ "www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.gif" (no gifs in the example
+ pattern).
+
+ Please 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 "(?-i)" switch:
+
+ www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* - will match only documents whose path
+ starts with "PaTtErN" in exactly this capitalization.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+3.4.2. Actions
+
+ Actions are enabled if preceded with a "+", and disabled if preceded
+ with a "-". Actions are invoked by enclosing the action name in curly
+ braces (e.g. {+some_action}), followed by a list of URLs to which the
+ action applies. There are three classes of actions:
+
+ * Boolean (e.g. "+/-block"):
+ {+name} # enable this action
+ {-name} # disable this action
- js-annoyances: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
+ * parameterized (e.g. "+/-hide-user-agent"):
+ {+name{param}} # enable action and set parameter to "param"
+ {-name} # disable action
- no-poups: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
+ * Multi-value (e.g. "{+/-add-header{Name: value}}",
+ "{+/-wafer{name=value}}"):
+ {+name{param}} # enable action and add parameter "param"
+ {-name{param}} # remove the parameter "param"
+ {-name} # disable this action totally
- frameset-borders: Give frames a border
+ If nothing is specified in this file, no "actions" are taken. So in
+ this case Privoxy would just be a normal, non-blocking,
+ non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the privacy and
+ blocking features you need (although the provided default
+ default.action file will give a good starting point).
+
+ Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. For multi-valued
+ actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
+
+ The list of valid Privoxy "actions" are:
+
+ * Add the specified HTTP header, which is not checked for validity.
+ You may specify this many times to specify many different headers:
+ +add-header{Name: value}
- webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
+ * Block this URL totally. In a default installation, a "blocked" URL
+ will result in bright red banner that says "BLOCKED", with a
+ reason why it is being blocked.
+ +block
- no-refresh: Automatic refresh sucks on auto-dialup lines
+ * De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last
+ frame. This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes,
+ not pixels!). If the option "first" is given, the first frame of
+ the animation is used as the replacement. If "last" is given, the
+ last frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes
+ more sense for most banner animations, but also has the risk of
+ not showing the entire last frame (if it is only a delta to an
+ earlier frame).
+ +deanimate-gifs{last}
+ +deanimate-gifs{first}
- fun: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
+ * "+downgrade" will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to HTTP/1.0
+ and downgrade the responses as well. Use this action for servers
+ that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that Privoxy doesn't handle
+ well yet. HTTP/1.1 is only partially implemented. Default is not
+ to downgrade requests.
+ +downgrade
- nimda: Remove (virus) Nimda code.
+ * Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites.
+ Instead, they will link to some script on their own server, giving
+ the destination as a parameter, which will then redirect you to
+ the final target. URLs resulting from this scheme typically look
+ like: http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else.
+ Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded
+ in the URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing
+ more traceable, since the server from which you follow such a link
+ can see where you go to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and
+ time is wasted, while your browser ask the server for one redirect
+ after the other. Plus, it feeds the advertisers.
+ The "+fast-redirects" option enables interception of these
+ requests by Privoxy, who will cut off all but the last valid URL
+ in the request and send a local redirect back to your browser
+ without contacting the remote site.
+ +fast-redirects
- banners-by-size: Kill banners by size
+ * Apply the filters in the section_header section of the
+ default.filter file to the site(s). default.filter sections are
+ grouped according to like functionality.
+ +filter{section_header}
- crude-parental: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or
- "warez"
+ Filter sections that are pre-defined in the supplied
+ default.filter include:
- * Block any existing X-Forwarded-for header, and do not add a new one:
-
- +hide-forwarded
-
-
- * If the browser sends a "From:" header containing your e-mail address, this
- either completely removes the header ("block"), or changes it to the
- specified e-mail address.
-
- +hide-from{block}
- +hide-from{spam@sittingduck.xqq}
-
-
- * Don't send the "Referer:" (sic) header to the web site. You can block it,
- forge a URL to the same server as the request (which is preferred because
- some sites will not send images otherwise) or set it to a constant string
- of your choice.
-
- +hide-referer{block}
- +hide-referer{forge}
- +hide-referer{http://nowhere.com}
-
-
- * Alternative spelling of "+hide-referer". It has the same parameters, and
- can be freely mixed with, "+hide-referer". ("referrer" is the correct
- English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it requires it
- to be spelled "referer".)
-
- +hide-referrer{...}
-
-
- * Change the "User-Agent:" header so web servers can't tell your browser
- type. Warning! This breaks many web sites. Specify the user-agent value you
- want. Example, pretend to be using Netscape on Linux:
+ html-annoyances: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
- +hide-user-agent{Mozilla (X11; I; Linux 2.0.32 i586)}
-
+ js-annoyances: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
- * Treat this URL as an image. This only matters if it's also "+block"ed, in
- which case a "blocked" image can be sent rather than a HTML page. See
- "+image-blocker{}" below for the control over what is actually sent. If you
- want invisible ads, they should be defined as images and blocked. And also,
- "image-blocker" should be set to "blank".
-
- +image
-
+ no-poups: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
- * Decides what to do with URLs that end up tagged with "{+block +image}", e.g
- an advertizement. There are five options. "-image-blocker" will send a HTML
- "blocked" page, usually resulting in a "broken image" icon. "+image-blocker
- {blank}" will send a 1x1 transparent GIF image. And finally,
- "+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}" will send a HTTP temporary redirect to the
- specified image. This has the advantage of the icon being being cached by
- the browser, which will speed up the display. "+image-blocker{pattern}"
- will send a checkboard type pattern
-
- +image-blocker{blank}
- +image-blocker{pattern}
- +image-blocker{http://p.p/send-banner}
-
-
- * By default (i.e. in the absence of a "+limit-connect" action), Privoxy will
- only allow CONNECT requests to port 443, which is the standard port for
- https as a precaution.
-
- The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
- (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy connects
- to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits its
- connections to the client and to the remote proxy. This can be a big
- security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be abused as TCP relays
- very easily.
-
- If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
- CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
- port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
- max to 65K):
-
- +limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need no be specified.
- +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
- +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100
- #and above 500 are OK.
-
-
- * "+no-compression" prevents the website from compressing the data. Some
- websites do this, which can be a problem for Privoxy, since "+filter",
- "+no-popup" and "+gif-deanimate" will not work on compressed data. This
- will slow down connections to those websites, though. Default is
- "nocompression" is turned on.
-
- +nocompression
-
-
- * If the website sets cookies, "no-cookies-keep" will make sure they are
- erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes profiling
- cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so that you
- can log in for transactions. Default: on.
-
- +no-cookies-keep
-
-
- * Prevent the website from reading cookies:
-
- +no-cookies-read
-
-
- * Prevent the website from setting cookies:
-
- +no-cookies-set
-
-
- * Filter the website through a built-in filter to disable those obnoxious
- JavaScript pop-up windows via window.open(), etc. The two alternative
- spellings are equivalent.
-
- +no-popup
- +no-popups
-
-
- * This action only applies if you are using a jarfile for saving cookies. It
- sends a cookie to every site stating that you do not accept any copyright
- on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track you. Of course, this
- is a (relatively) unique header they could use to track you.
-
- +vanilla-wafer
-
-
- * This allows you to add an arbitrary cookie. It can be specified multiple
- times in order to add as many cookies as you like.
-
- +wafer{name=value}
-
-
-The meaning of any of the above is reversed by preceding the action with a "-",
-in place of the "+".
-
-Some examples:
-
-Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified sites:
-
- # Turn off all persistent cookies
- { +no-cookies-read }
- { +no-cookies-set }
- # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
- { +no-cookies-keep }
-
- # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
- { -no-cookies-read }
- { -no-cookies-set }
- { -no-cookies-keep }
- .javasoft.com
- .sun.com
- .yahoo.com
- .msdn.microsoft.com
- .redhat.com
-
- # Alternative way of saying the same thing
- {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
- .sourceforge.net
- .sf.net
-
-
-Now turn off "fast redirects", and then we allow two exceptions:
-
- # Turn them off!
- {+fast-redirects}
-
- # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
- {-fast-redirects}
- www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
- login.yahoo.com
-
-
-Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections of
-refilterfile, and make one exception for sourceforge:
-
- # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
- # specified sections:
- +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
- +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
-
- # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
- {-filter}
- .cvs.sourceforge.net
-
-
-Now some URLs that we want "blocked", ie we won't see them. Many of these use
-regular expressions that will expand to match multiple URLs:
-
- # Blocklist:
- {+block}
- /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
- /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
- /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
- /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
- /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
- /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
- /.*/abanners/
- /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
- /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
- /.*/adbanners/
- /.*/adserver
- /.*/adstream\.cgi
- /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
- /.*/banner_?ads/
- /.*/banners?/
- /.*/banners?\.cgi/
- /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
- /.*/images/addver\.gif
- /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
- /.*/popupads/
- /.*/siteads/
- /.*/sponsor.*\.gif
- /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
- /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
- /Media/Images/Adds/
- /ad_images/
- /adimages/
- /.*/ads/
- /bannerfarm/
- /grafikk/annonse/
- /graphics/defaultAd/
- /image\.ng/AdType
- /image\.ng/transactionID
- /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
- /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
- /rotateads/
- /rotations/
- /worldnet/ad\.cgi
- /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
- /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
- /.*/ad-bin/
- /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
- /autoads/
-
-
-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 content he may
-depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules for all sites. See the
-Appendix for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.4.3. Aliases
-
-Custom "actions", known to Privoxy as "aliases", can be defined by combining
-other "actions". These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in "actions".
-Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, "=", "{" or "}
-". But please use only "a"- "z", "0"-"9", "+", and "-". Alias names are not
-case sensitive, and must be defined before anything else in the
-default.actionfile ! And there can only be one set of "aliases" defined.
-
-Now let's define a few aliases:
-
- # Useful customer aliases we can use later. These must come first!
- {{alias}}
- +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
- -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
- fragile =
- -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -no-popups
- shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
- +imageblock = +block +image
-
- #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
- c0 = +no-cookies
- c1 = -no-cookies
- c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
- c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
- #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
+ frameset-borders: Give frames a border
-
-Some examples using our "shop" and "fragile" aliases from above:
-
- # These sites are very complex and require
- # minimal interference.
- {fragile}
- .office.microsoft.com
- .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
- .nytimes.com
-
- # Shopping sites - still want to block ads.
- {shop}
- .quietpc.com
- .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
- .jungle.com
- .scan.co.uk
-
- # These shops require pop-ups
- {shop -no-popups}
- .dabs.com
- .overclockers.co.uk
+ webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.5. The Filter File
-
-Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
-modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content, including
-tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is default.filter,
-located in the config directory.
-
-The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins with
-the FILTER keyword, followed by the identifier for that section, e.g. "FILTER:
-webbugs". Each section performs a similar type of filtering, such as
-"html-annoyances".
-
-This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the target
-page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some examples
-from the included default default.filter:
-
-Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by deleting
-such references:
-
- FILTER: html-annoyances
-
- # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
- # bar. Make it so.
- #
- s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
- s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
- s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
- s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
-
- # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
- #
- s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
-
- # Is this evil?
- #
- #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
- #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
+ no-refresh: Automatic refresh sucks on auto-dialup lines
-
-Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of "Microsoft" with "MicroSuck", and
-have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
-
- FILTER: fun
-
- s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
-
- # Buzzword Bingo:
- #
- s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></
-font>/ig
+ fun: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
-
-Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
-
- # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
- FILTER: webbugs
-
- s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1
-(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
+ nimda: Remove (virus) Nimda code.
+
+ banners-by-size: Kill banners by size
+ crude-parental: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or
+ "warez"
+
+ * Block any existing X-Forwarded-for header, and do not add a new
+ one:
+ +hide-forwarded
+
+ * If the browser sends a "From:" header containing your e-mail
+ address, this either completely removes the header ("block"), or
+ changes it to the specified e-mail address.
+ +hide-from{block}
+ +hide-from{spam@sittingduck.xqq}
+
+ * Don't send the "Referer:" (sic) header to the web site. You can
+ block it, forge a URL to the same server as the request (which is
+ preferred because some sites will not send images otherwise) or
+ set it to a constant string of your choice.
+ +hide-referer{block}
+ +hide-referer{forge}
+ +hide-referer{http://nowhere.com}
+
+ * Alternative spelling of "+hide-referer". It has the same
+ parameters, and can be freely mixed with, "+hide-referer".
+ ("referrer" is the correct English spelling, however the HTTP
+ specification has a bug - it requires it to be spelled "referer".)
+ +hide-referrer{...}
+
+ * Change the "User-Agent:" header so web servers can't tell your
+ browser type. Warning! This breaks many web sites. Specify the
+ user-agent value you want. Example, pretend to be using Netscape
+ on Linux:
+ +hide-user-agent{Mozilla (X11; I; Linux 2.0.32 i586)}
+
+ * Treat this URL as an image. This only matters if it's also
+ "+block"ed, in which case a "blocked" image can be sent rather
+ than a HTML page. See "+image-blocker{}" below for the control
+ over what is actually sent. If you want invisible ads, they should
+ be defined as images and blocked. And also, "image-blocker" should
+ be set to "blank".
+ +image
+
+ * Decides what to do with URLs that end up tagged with "{+block
+ +image}", e.g an advertizement. There are five options.
+ "-image-blocker" will send a HTML "blocked" page, usually
+ resulting in a "broken image" icon. "+image-blocker{blank}" will
+ send a 1x1 transparent GIF image. And finally,
+ "+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}" will send a HTTP temporary
+ redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the
+ icon being being cached by the browser, which will speed up the
+ display. "+image-blocker{pattern}" will send a checkboard type
+ pattern
+ +image-blocker{blank}
+ +image-blocker{pattern}
+ +image-blocker{http://p.p/send-banner}
+
+ * By default (i.e. in the absence of a "+limit-connect" action),
+ Privoxy will only allow CONNECT requests to port 443, which is the
+ standard port for https as a precaution.
+ The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure
+ websites (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
+ the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
+ short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote
+ proxy. This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled
+ proxies can be abused as TCP relays very easily.
+ If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to
+ forbid CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list
+ of ports and port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the
+ minimum defaulting to 0 and max to 65K):
+ +limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need no be
+ specified.
+ +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
+ +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to
+ 100
+ #and above 500 are OK.
+
+ * "+no-compression" prevents the website from compressing the data.
+ Some websites do this, which can be a problem for Privoxy, since
+ "+filter", "+no-popup" and "+gif-deanimate" will not work on
+ compressed data. This will slow down connections to those
+ websites, though. Default is "nocompression" is turned on.
+ +nocompression
+
+ * If the website sets cookies, "no-cookies-keep" will make sure they
+ are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
+ profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require
+ cookies so that you can log in for transactions. Default: on.
+ +no-cookies-keep
+
+ * Prevent the website from reading cookies:
+ +no-cookies-read
+
+ * Prevent the website from setting cookies:
+ +no-cookies-set
+
+ * Filter the website through a built-in filter to disable those
+ obnoxious JavaScript pop-up windows via window.open(), etc. The
+ two alternative spellings are equivalent.
+ +no-popup
+ +no-popups
+
+ * This action only applies if you are using a jarfile for saving
+ cookies. It sends a cookie to every site stating that you do not
+ accept any copyright on cookies sent to you, and asking them not
+ to track you. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header they
+ could use to track you.
+ +vanilla-wafer
+
+ * This allows you to add an arbitrary cookie. It can be specified
+ multiple times in order to add as many cookies as you like.
+ +wafer{name=value}
+
+ The meaning of any of the above is reversed by preceding the action
+ with a "-", in place of the "+".
+
+ Some examples:
+
+ Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified
+ sites:
+
+ # Turn off all persistent cookies
+ { +no-cookies-read }
+ { +no-cookies-set }
+ # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
+ { +no-cookies-keep }
+ # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
+ { -no-cookies-read }
+ { -no-cookies-set }
+ { -no-cookies-keep }
+ .javasoft.com
+ .sun.com
+ .yahoo.com
+ .msdn.microsoft.com
+ .redhat.com
+ # Alternative way of saying the same thing
+ {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
+ .sourceforge.net
+ .sf.net
+
+ Now turn off "fast redirects", and then we allow two exceptions:
+
+ # Turn them off!
+ {+fast-redirects}
+
+ # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
+ {-fast-redirects}
+ www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
+ login.yahoo.com
+
+ Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections of
+ refilterfile, and make one exception for sourceforge:
+
+ # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
+ # specified sections:
+ +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
+ +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
+
+ # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
+ {-filter}
+ .cvs.sourceforge.net
+
+ Now some URLs that we want "blocked", ie we won't see them. Many of
+ these use regular expressions that will expand to match multiple URLs:
+
+ # Blocklist:
+ {+block}
+ /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
+ /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
+ /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
+ /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
+ /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
+ /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
+ /.*/abanners/
+ /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
+ /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
+ /.*/adbanners/
+ /.*/adserver
+ /.*/adstream\.cgi
+ /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
+ /.*/banner_?ads/
+ /.*/banners?/
+ /.*/banners?\.cgi/
+ /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
+ /.*/images/addver\.gif
+ /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
+ /.*/popupads/
+ /.*/siteads/
+ /.*/sponsor.*\.gif
+ /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
+ /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
+ /Media/Images/Adds/
+ /ad_images/
+ /adimages/
+ /.*/ads/
+ /bannerfarm/
+ /grafikk/annonse/
+ /graphics/defaultAd/
+ /image\.ng/AdType
+ /image\.ng/transactionID
+ /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
+ /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
+ /rotateads/
+ /rotations/
+ /worldnet/ad\.cgi
+ /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
+ /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
+ /.*/ad-bin/
+ /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
+ /autoads/
+
+ 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
+ content he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules
+ for all sites. See the [52]Appendix for a brief example on
+ troubleshooting actions.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+3.4.3. Aliases
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Custom "actions", known to Privoxy as "aliases", can be defined by
+ combining other "actions". These can in turn be invoked just like the
+ built-in "actions". Currently, an alias can contain any character
+ except space, tab, "=", "{" or "}". But please use only "a"- "z",
+ "0"-"9", "+", and "-". Alias names are not case sensitive, and must be
+ defined before anything else in the default.actionfile ! And there can
+ only be one set of "aliases" defined.
+
+ Now let's define a few aliases:
+
+ # Useful customer aliases we can use later. These must come first!
+ {{alias}}
+ +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
+ -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
+ fragile = -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-refere
+ r -no-popups
+ shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
+ +imageblock = +block +image
+ #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
+ c0 = +no-cookies
+ c1 = -no-cookies
+ c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
+ c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
+ #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
+
+ Some examples using our "shop" and "fragile" aliases from above:
+
+ # These sites are very complex and require
+ # minimal interference.
+ {fragile}
+ .office.microsoft.com
+ .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
+ .nytimes.com
+ # Shopping sites - still want to block ads.
+ {shop}
+ .quietpc.com
+ .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
+ .jungle.com
+ .scan.co.uk
+ # These shops require pop-ups
+ {shop -no-popups}
+ .dabs.com
+ .overclockers.co.uk
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
+3.5. The Filter File
+ Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
+ modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
+ including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
+ default.filter, located in the config directory.
+
+ The included example file is divided into sections. Each section
+ begins with the FILTER keyword, followed by the identifier for that
+ section, e.g. "FILTER: webbugs". Each section performs a similar type
+ of filtering, such as "html-annoyances".
+
+ This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in
+ the target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a
+ time. Some examples from the included default default.filter:
+
+ Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
+ deleting such references:
+
+ FILTER: html-annoyances
+ # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and st
+ atus
+ # bar. Make it so.
+ #
+ s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
+ s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
+ s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
+ s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
+ # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
+ #
+ s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
+ # Is this evil?
+ #
+ #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
+ #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
+
+ Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of "Microsoft" with
+ "MicroSuck", and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
+
+ FILTER: fun
+ s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
+ # Buzzword Bingo:
+ #
+ s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BING
+ O!</b></font>/ig
+
+ Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
+
+ # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
+ FILTER: webbugs
+ s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\
+ s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
3.6. Templates
-When Privoxy displays one of its internal pages, such as a 404 Not Found error
-page, it uses the appropriate template. On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these are
-located in /etc/privoxy/templates by default. These may be customized, if
-desired.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ When Privoxy displays one of its internal pages, such as a 404 Not
+ Found error page, it uses the appropriate template. On Linux, BSD, and
+ Unix, these are located in /etc/privoxy/templates by default. These
+ may be customized, if desired.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
4. Quickstart to Using Privoxy
-Install package, then run and enjoy! Privoxy is typically started by specifying
-the main configuration file to be used on the command line. Example Unix
-startup command:
-
-
- # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
-
-
-
-An init script is provided for SuSE and Redhat.
-
-For for SuSE: /etc/rc.d/privoxy start
-
-For RedHat: /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
-
-If no configuration file is specified on the command line, Privoxy will look
-for a file named config in the current directory. Except on Win32 where it will
-try config.txt. If no file is specified on the command line and no default
-configuration file can be found, Privoxy will fail to start.
-
-Be sure your browser is set to use the proxy which is by default at localhost,
-port 8118. With Netscape (and Mozilla), this can be set under Edit ->
-Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy. For Internet Explorer: Tools
-> Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting. Then, check "Use Proxy"
-and fill in the appropriate info (Address: localhost, Port: 8118). Include if
-HTTPS proxy support too.
-
-The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
-point, though may be somewhat aggressive in blocking junk. You will probably
-want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent cookies, and add
-these to default.action as needed. By default, most of these will be accepted
-only during the current browser session, until you add them to the
-configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need to
-edit default.action and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser,
-it would make more sense to let Privoxy handle this. In which case, the browser
-(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
-
-If a particular site shows problems loading properly, try adding it to the
-{fragile} section of default.action. This will turn off most actions for this
-site.
-
-Privoxy is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all 1.1 features are as yet implemented.
-If browsers that support HTTP/1.1 (like Mozilla or recent versions of I.E.)
-experience problems, you might try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For
-Mozilla, look under Edit -> Preferences -> Debug -> Networking. Or set the
-"+downgrade" config option in default.action.
-
-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" (as specified in default.action)
-can be adjusted by pointing your browser to http://p.p/, and then follow the
-link to "edit the actions list". (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 default.action file editor mentioned above, Privoxy can also be turned
-"on" and "off" from this page.
-
-If you encounter problems, please verify it is a Privoxy bug, by disabling
-Privoxy, and then trying the same page. Also, try another browser if possible
-to eliminate browser or site problems. Before reporting it as a bug, see if
-there is not a configuration option that is enabled that is causing the page
-not to load. You can then add an exception for that page or site. If a bug,
-please report it to the developers (see below).
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Install package, then run and enjoy! Privoxy is typically started by
+ specifying the main configuration file to be used on the command line.
+ Example Unix startup command:
+
+
+ # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
+
+
+ An init script is provided for SuSE and Redhat.
+
+ For for SuSE: /etc/rc.d/privoxy start
+
+ For RedHat: /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
+
+ If no configuration file is specified on the command line, Privoxy
+ will look for a file named config in the current directory. Except on
+ Win32 where it will try config.txt. If no file is specified on the
+ command line and no default configuration file can be found, Privoxy
+ will fail to start.
+
+ Be sure your browser is set to use the proxy which is by default at
+ localhost, port 8118. With Netscape (and Mozilla), this can be set
+ under Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy. For
+ Internet Explorer: Tools > Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN
+ Setting. Then, check "Use Proxy" and fill in the appropriate info
+ (Address: localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
+
+ The included default configuration files should give a reasonable
+ starting point, though may be somewhat aggressive in blocking junk.
+ You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites that require
+ persistent cookies, and add these to default.action as needed. By
+ default, most of these will be accepted only during the current
+ browser session, until you add them to the configuration. If you want
+ the browser to handle this instead, you will need to edit
+ default.action and disable this feature. If you use more than one
+ browser, it would make more sense to let Privoxy handle this. In which
+ case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
+
+ If a particular site shows problems loading properly, try adding it to
+ the {fragile} section of default.action. This will turn off most
+ actions for this site.
+
+ Privoxy is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all 1.1 features are as yet
+ implemented. If browsers that support HTTP/1.1 (like Mozilla or recent
+ versions of I.E.) experience problems, you might try to force HTTP/1.0
+ compatibility. For Mozilla, look under Edit -> Preferences -> Debug ->
+ Networking. Or set the "+downgrade" config option in default.action.
+
+ 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" (as specified in default.action) can be adjusted by pointing
+ your browser to [53]http://p.p/, and then follow the link to "edit the
+ actions list". (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 default.action file editor
+ mentioned above, Privoxy can also be turned "on" and "off" from this
+ page.
+
+ If you encounter problems, please verify it is a Privoxy bug, by
+ disabling Privoxy, and then trying the same page. Also, try another
+ browser if possible to eliminate browser or site problems. Before
+ reporting it as a bug, see if there is not a configuration option that
+ is enabled that is causing the page not to load. You can then add an
+ exception for that page or site. If a bug, please report it to the
+ developers (see below).
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
4.1. Command Line Options
-Privoxy may be invoked with the following command-line options:
-
- * --version
+ Privoxy may be invoked with the following command-line options:
+
+ * --version
+ Print version info and exit, Unix only.
+ * --help
+ Print a short usage info and exit, Unix only.
+ * --no-daemon
+ Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
+ leader, don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
+ * --pidfile FILE
+ On startup, write the process ID to FILE. Delete the FILE on exit.
+ Failiure to create or delete the FILE is non-fatal. If no FILE
+ option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
+ * --user USER[.GROUP]
+ After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
+ USER, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the privileges are
+ not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
+ * 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.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- Print version info and exit, Unix only.
-
- * --help
+5. Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+
+ We value your feedback. However, to provide you with the best support,
+ please note:
+
+ * Use the [54]Sourceforge support forum to get help.
+ * Submit bugs only thru our [55]Sourceforge bug forum. Make sure
+ that the bug has not already been submitted. Please try to verify
+ that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug first. If
+ you are using your own custom configuration, please try the stock
+ configs to see if the problem is a configuration related bug. And
+ if not using the latest development snapshot, please try the
+ latest one. Or even better, CVS sources.
+ * Submit feature requests only thru our [56]Sourceforge feature
+ request forum.
+
+ For any other issues, feel free to use the [57]mailing lists.
- Print a short usage info and exit, Unix only.
+ Anyone interested in actively participating in development and related
+ discussions can join the appropriate mailing list [58]here. Archives
+ are available here too.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * --no-daemon
+6. Copyright and History
+
+6.1. License
+
+ Privoxy is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+ under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
+ Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
+ option) any later version.
- Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group leader,
- don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
+ This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+ WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
+ General Public License for more details, which is available from
+ [59]the Free Software Foundation, Inc, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
+ Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * --pidfile FILE
+6.2. History
+
+ Privoxy is derived from the Internet Junkbuster, with many improvments
+ and enhancements over the original.
- On startup, write the process ID to FILE. Delete the FILE on exit. Failiure
- to create or delete the FILE is non-fatal. If no FILE option is given, no
- PID file will be used. Unix only.
+ Junkbuster was originally written by Anonymous Coders and
+ [60]Junkbuster's Corporation, and was released as free open-source
+ software under the GNU GPL. [61]Stefan Waldherr made many
+ improvements, and started the [62]SourceForge project Privoxy to
+ rekindle development. There are now several active developers
+ contributing. The last stable release of Junkbuster was v2.0.2, which
+ has now grown whiskers ;-).
+ _________________________________________________________________
- * --user USER[.GROUP]
+7. See also
+
+ [63]http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa
- After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of USER, and if
- included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the privileges are not sufficient to do
- so. Unix only.
+ [64]http://www.privoxy.org/
- * configfile
+ [65]http://p.p/
- 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.
+ [66]http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-5. Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
-
-We value your feedback. However, to provide you with the best support, please
-note:
-
- * Use the Sourceforge support forum to get help.
+ [67]http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/
- * Submit bugs only thru our Sourceforge bug forum. Make sure that the bug has
- not already been submitted. Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug,
- and not a browser or site bug first. If you are using your own custom
- configuration, please try the stock configs to see if the problem is a
- configuration related bug. And if not using the latest development
- snapshot, please try the latest one. Or even better, CVS sources.
+ [68]http://privacy.net/analyze/
- * Submit feature requests only thru our Sourceforge feature request forum.
+ [69]http://www.squid-cache.org/
+ _________________________________________________________________
-
-
-For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists.
-
-Anyone interested in actively participating in development and related
-discussions can join the appropriate mailing list here. Archives are available
-here too.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-6. Copyright and History
-
-6.1. License
-
-Privoxy is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
-terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
-Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
-version.
-
-This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
-WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
-PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details, which
-is available from the Free Software Foundation, Inc, 59 Temple Place - Suite
-330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-6.2. History
-
-Privoxy is derived from the Internet Junkbuster, with many improvments and
-enhancements over the original.
-
-Junkbuster was originally written by Anonymous Coders and Junkbuster's
-Corporation, and was released as free open-source software under the GNU GPL.
-Stefan Waldherr made many improvements, and started the SourceForge project
-Privoxy to rekindle development. There are now several active developers
-contributing. The last stable release of Junkbuster was v2.0.2, which has now
-grown whiskers ;-).
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-7. See also
-
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/
-
- http://p.p/
-
- http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html
-
- http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/
-
- http://privacy.net/analyze/
-
- http://www.squid-cache.org/
-
-
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
8. Appendix
8.1. Regular Expressions
-Privoxy can use "regular expressions" in various config files. Assuming support
-for "pcre" (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the
-default. Such configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but
-they can be used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards
-against URLs.
-
-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" is a way of matching one character expression against
-another to see if it matches or not. One of the "expressions" is a literal
-string of readable characters (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a
-complex string 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 the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl
-Compatible Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression
-language with backward compatibility.
-
-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.
-
-[] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if any of the enclosed
-characters are encountered.
-
-() - 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.
-
-s/string1/string2/g - This is used to rewrite strings of text. "string1" is
-replaced by "string2" in this example.
-
-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/.* - A simple example that uses the common combination of "." 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.
-
-A now something a little more complex:
-
-/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/ - We have several literal forward
-slashes again ("/"), 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) - Again another path statement with forward
-slashes. Anything in the square brackets "[]" 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).
-
-s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i - This is a substitution. "MicroSuck" will
-replace any occurrence of "microsoft". The "i" at the end of the expression
-means ignore case. The "(?!.com)" means the match should fail if "microsoft" is
-followed by ".com". In other words, this acts like a "NOT" modifier. In case
-this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
-
-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://www.perldoc.com/
-perl5.6/pod/perlre.html
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ Privoxy can use "regular expressions" in various config files.
+ Assuming support for "pcre" (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) is
+ compiled in, which is the default. Such configuration directives do
+ not require regular expressions, but they can be used to increase
+ flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against URLs.
+
+ 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" is a way of matching one character expression
+ against another to see if it matches or not. One of the "expressions"
+ is a literal string of readable characters (letter, numbers, etc), and
+ the other is a complex string 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 the
+ complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible Regular
+ Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
+ with backward compatibility.
+
+ 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.
+
+ [] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if any of the
+ enclosed characters are encountered.
+
+ () - 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.
+
+ s/string1/string2/g - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
+ "string1" is replaced by "string2" in this example.
+
+ 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/.* - A simple example that uses the common combination of
+ "." 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.
+
+ A now something a little more complex:
+
+ /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/ - We have several literal
+ forward slashes again ("/"), 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) - Again another path statement with
+ forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets "[]" 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).
+
+ s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i - This is a substitution. "MicroSuck"
+ will replace any occurrence of "microsoft". The "i" at the end of the
+ expression means ignore case. The "(?!.com)" means the match should
+ fail if "microsoft" is followed by ".com". In other words, this acts
+ like a "NOT" modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to
+ break it ;-).
+
+ 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:
+ [70]http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
8.2. Privoxy's Internal Pages
-Since Privoxy proxies each requested web page, it is easy for Privoxy to trap
-certain 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://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/
-
- Alternately, this may be reached at http://p.p/, but this variation may not
- work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
+ Since Privoxy proxies each requested web page, it is easy for Privoxy
+ to trap certain 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.
- * Show information about the current configuration:
+ 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.
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-status
+ * Privoxy main page:
- * Show the source code version numbers:
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-version
+ [71]http://www.privoxy.org/config/
+ Alternately, this may be reached at [72]http://p.p/, but this
+ variation may not work as reliably as the above in some
+ configurations.
+ * Show information about the current configuration:
- * Show the client's request headers:
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-request
+ [73]http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-status
+ * Show the source code version numbers:
- * Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info
+ [74]http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-version
+ * Show the client's request headers:
- * Toggle Privoxy on or off:
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle
+ [75]http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-request
+ * Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
- Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle?set=disable
+ [76]http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info
+ * Toggle Privoxy on or off:
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/toggle?set=enable
+ [77]http://www.privoxy.org/config/toggle
+ Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
- * Edit the actions list file:
-
- http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/edit-actions
+ [78]http://www.privoxy.org/config/toggle?set=disable
-These may be bookmarked for quick reference.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
+ [79]http://www.privoxy.org/config/toggle?set=enable
+ * Edit the actions list file:
+
+ [80]http://www.privoxy.org/config/edit-actions
+
+ These may be bookmarked for quick reference.
+ _________________________________________________________________
+
8.3. Anatomy of an Action
-The way Privoxy applies "actions" to any given URL can be complex, and not
-always so easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be
-able to see just what Privoxy is doing. Especially, if something Privoxy is
-doing is causing us a problem inadvertantly. It can be a little daunting to
-look at the actions files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
-"regular expressions" whose consequences are not always so obvious. Privoxy
-provides the http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/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 from the default.filter file! 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.
-
-Let's look at an example, google.com, one section at a time:
-
- System default actions:
-
- { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
- -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
- -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
- -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
-
-
-
-This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in defaults. This is
-basically what Privoxy would do if there were not any "actions" defined, i.e.
-it does nothing. Every action is disabled. This is not particularly informative
-for our purposes here. OK, next section:
-
- Matches for http://google.com:
-
- { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
- +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
- +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
- +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
- -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
- +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
- -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
- /
-
- { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
- .google.com
-
- { -fast-redirects }
- .google.com
-
-
-
-This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our "actions",
-and which ones match for our example, "google.com". The first grouping shows
-our default settings, which would apply to all URLs. If you look at your
-"actions" file, this would be the section just below the "aliases" section near
-the top. This applies to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash -- "
-/".
-
-These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
-actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list specific
-URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this
-then are two explict matches for ".google.com". The first is negating our
-various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow cookies here). The second
-is allowing "fast-redirects". 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". So, apparently, we have these actions
-defined somewhere in the lower part of our actions file, and "google.com" is
-referenced in these sections.
-
-And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how Privoxy
-is appying all its "actions" to "google.com":
-
- Final results:
-
- -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
- +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
- +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
- +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
- -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
- -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
- -wafer
-
-
-
-Now another example, "ad.doubleclick.net":
-
- { +block +image }
- .ad.doubleclick.net
-
- { +block +image }
- ad*.
-
- { +block +image }
- .doubleclick.net
-
-
-
-We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is matched
-three different times. Each as an "+block +image", which is the expanded form
-of one of our aliases that had been defined as: "+imageblock". ("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
-"+image". The custom alias "+imageblock" does this for us.
-
-One last example. Let's try "http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/". This one is
-giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
-
- Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
-
- { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
- +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
- +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
- +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
- -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
- +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
- -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
- /
-
- { +block +image }
- /ads
-
-
-
-Ooops, the "/adsl/" is matching "/ads"! But we did not want this at all! Now we
-see why we get the blank page. We could now add a new action below this that
-explictly does not block (-block) pages with "adsl". There are various ways to
-handle such exceptions. Example:
-
- { -block }
- /adsl
-
-
-
-Now the page displays ;-)
-
+ The way Privoxy applies "actions" to any given URL can be complex, and
+ not always so easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we
+ need to be able to see just what Privoxy is doing. Especially, if
+ something Privoxy is doing is causing us a problem inadvertantly. It
+ can be a little daunting to look at the actions files themselves,
+ since they tend to be filled with "regular expressions" whose
+ consequences are not always so obvious. Privoxy provides the
+ [81]http://www.privoxy.org/config/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 from the default.filter file! 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.
+
+ Let's look at an example, [82]google.com, one section at a time:
+
+ System default actions:
+
+ { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
+ -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
+ -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
+ -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
+
+
+ This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in
+ defaults. This is basically what Privoxy would do if there were not
+ any "actions" defined, i.e. it does nothing. Every action is disabled.
+ This is not particularly informative for our purposes here. OK, next
+ section:
+
+ Matches for http://google.com:
+
+ { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
+ +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
+ +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
+ +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
+ -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
+ +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
+ -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
+ /
+
+ { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
+ .google.com
+
+ { -fast-redirects }
+ .google.com
+
+
+ This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our
+ "actions", and which ones match for our example, "google.com". The
+ first grouping shows our default settings, which would apply to all
+ URLs. If you look at your "actions" file, this would be the section
+ just below the "aliases" section near the top. This applies to all
+ URLs as signified by the single forward slash -- "/".
+
+ These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define
+ additional actions that would be exceptions to these general rules,
+ and then list specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last
+ match wins. Just below this then are two explict matches for
+ ".google.com". The first is negating our various cookie blocking
+ actions (i.e. we will allow cookies here). The second is allowing
+ "fast-redirects". 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". So, apparently, we
+ have these actions defined somewhere in the lower part of our actions
+ file, and "google.com" is referenced in these sections.
+
+ And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
+ Privoxy is appying all its "actions" to "google.com":
+
+ Final results:
+
+ -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
+ +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
+ +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
+ +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
+ -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
+ -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
+ -wafer
+
+
+ Now another example, "ad.doubleclick.net":
+
+ { +block +image }
+ .ad.doubleclick.net
+
+ { +block +image }
+ ad*.
+
+ { +block +image }
+ .doubleclick.net
+
+
+ We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
+ matched three different times. Each as an "+block +image", which is
+ the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
+ "+imageblock". ("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 "+image". The custom alias
+ "+imageblock" does this for us.
+
+ One last example. Let's try "http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/".
+ This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
+
+ Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
+
+ { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
+ +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
+ +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
+ +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
+ -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
+ +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
+ -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
+ /
+
+ { +block +image }
+ /ads
+
+
+ Ooops, the "/adsl/" is matching "/ads"! But we did not want this at
+ all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could now add a new
+ action below this that explictly does not block (-block) pages with
+ "adsl". There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
+
+ { -block }
+ /adsl
+
+
+ Now the page displays ;-)
+
+References
+
+ Visible links
+ 1. http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/
+ 2. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INTRODUCTION
+ 3. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN31
+ 4. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION
+ 5. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION-SOURCE
+ 6. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION-RH
+ 7. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION-SUSE
+ 8. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION-OS2
+ 9. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION-WIN
+ 10. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#INSTALLATION-OTHER
+ 11. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#CONFIGURATION
+ 12. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN150
+ 13. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN168
+ 14. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN199
+ 15. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN232
+ 16. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN325
+ 17. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN462
+ 18. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN550
+ 19. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN659
+ 20. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#ACTIONSFILE
+ 21. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN758
+ 22. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN832
+ 23. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1149
+ 24. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#FILTERFILE
+ 25. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1208
+ 26. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#QUICKSTART
+ 27. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1264
+ 28. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#CONTACT
+ 29. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#COPYRIGHT
+ 30. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1323
+ 31. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1329
+ 32. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#SEEALSO
+ 33. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#APPENDIX
+ 34. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#REGEX
+ 35. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1517
+ 36. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#ACTIONSANAT
+ 37. http://p.p/
+ 38. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/
+ 39. http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ijbswa/current/
+ 40. http://www.gnu.org/
+ 41. http://p.p/
+ 42. http://www.privoxy.org/config/
+ 43. http://p.p/
+ 44. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#ACTIONSFILE
+ 45. http://p.p/
+ 46. http://p.p/
+ 47. http://p.p/
+ 48. http://p.p/
+ 49. http://p.p/show-url-info
+ 50. http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html
+ 51. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#REGEX
+ 52. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#ACTIONSANAT
+ 53. http://p.p/
+ 54. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118
+ 55. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118
+ 56. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118&func=browse
+ 57. http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=11118
+ 58. http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=11118
+ 59. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
+ 60. http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/ijbfaq.html
+ 61. http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/
+ 62. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/
+ 63. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa
+ 64. http://www.privoxy.org/
+ 65. http://p.p/
+ 66. http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html
+ 67. http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/
+ 68. http://privacy.net/analyze/
+ 69. http://www.squid-cache.org/
+ 70. http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html
+ 71. http://www.privoxy.org/config/
+ 72. http://p.p/
+ 73. http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-status
+ 74. http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-version
+ 75. http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-request
+ 76. http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info
+ 77. http://www.privoxy.org/config/toggle
+ 78. http://www.privoxy.org/config/toggle?set=disable
+ 79. http://www.privoxy.org/config/toggle?set=enable
+ 80. http://www.privoxy.org/config/edit-actions
+ 81. http://www.privoxy.org/config/show-url-info
+ 82. http://google.com/
+
+ Hidden links:
+ 83. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1389
+ 84. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1397
+ 85. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1400
+ 86. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1403
+ 87. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1406
+ 88. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1411
+ 89. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1414
+ 90. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1417
+ 91. file://localhost/home/swa/sf/current-org/doc/source/tmp.html#AEN1423
projects / privoxy.git / commitdiff