Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Privoxy Developers
-$Id: developer-manual.sgml,v 1.42 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9 Exp $
+$Id: developer-manual.sgml,v 1.46.2.4 2002/05/29 00:30:59 mal0rd Exp $
-The developer manual gives the users information on how to help the developer
-team. It provides guidance on coding, testing, documentation and other issues.
+
+The developer manual provides guidance on coding, testing, packaging,
+documentation and other issues of importance to those involved with Privoxy
+development. It is mandatory (and helpful!) reading for anyone who wants to
+join the team.
You can find the latest version of the this manual at http://www.privoxy.org/
developer-manual/. Please see the Contact section on how to contact the
developers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
-
1.1. Quickstart to Privoxy Development
-2. The CVS Repository
+2. The CVS Repository
2.1. Access to CVS
2.2. CVS Commit Guideline
2.3. Discussing Changes First
-3. Documentation Guidelines
+3. Documentation Guidelines
3.1. Quickstart to Docbook and SGML
3.2. Privoxy Documentation Style
3.3. Privoxy Custom Entities
-4. Coding Guidelines
+4. Coding Guidelines
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Using Comments
-
4.2.1. Comment, Comment, Comment
4.2.2. Use blocks for comments
4.2.3. Keep Comments on their own line
4.2.6. Comment at the end of braces if the content is more than one
screen length
- 4.3. Naming Conventions
+ 4.3. Naming Conventions
4.3.1. Variable Names
4.3.2. Function Names
4.3.3. Header file prototypes
4.3.4. Enumerations, and #defines
4.3.5. Constants
- 4.4. Using Space
+ 4.4. Using Space
4.4.1. Put braces on a line by themselves.
4.4.2. ALL control statements should have a block
4.4.3. Do not belabor/blow-up boolean expressions
4.4.6. Make the last brace of a function stand out
4.4.7. Use 3 character indentions
- 4.5. Initializing
+ 4.5. Initializing
4.5.1. Initialize all variables
- 4.6. Functions
+ 4.6. Functions
4.6.1. Name functions that return a boolean as a question.
4.6.2. Always specify a return type for a function.
4.6.3. Minimize function calls when iterating by using variables
4.6.9. Where Possible, Use Forward Struct Declaration Instead of
Includes
- 4.7. General Coding Practices
+ 4.7. General Coding Practices
4.7.1. Turn on warnings
4.7.2. Provide a default case for all switch statements
4.7.3. Try to avoid falling through cases in a switch statement.
4.7.9. Add loaders to the `file_list' structure and in order
4.7.10. "Uncertain" new code and/or changes to existing code, use FIXME
+
4.8. Addendum: Template for files and function comment blocks:
-5. Testing Guidelines
+5. Testing Guidelines
5.1. Testplan for releases
5.2. Test reports
-6. Releasing a New Version
+6. Releasing a New Version
6.1. Version numbers
6.2. Before the Release: Freeze
6.3. Building and Releasing the Packages
+ 6.3.1. Note on Privoxy Packaging
+ 6.3.2. Source Tarball
+ 6.3.3. SuSE, Conectiva or Red Hat RPM
+ 6.3.4. OS/2
+ 6.3.5. Solaris
+ 6.3.6. Windows
+ 6.3.7. Debian
+ 6.3.8. Mac OSX
+ 6.3.9. FreeBSD
+ 6.3.10. HP-UX 11
+ 6.3.11. Amiga OS
+ 6.3.12. AIX
- 6.3.1. Source Tarball
- 6.3.2. SuSE or Red Hat RPM
- 6.3.3. OS/2
- 6.3.4. Solaris
- 6.3.5. Windows
- 6.3.6. Debian
- 6.3.7. Mac OSX
- 6.3.8. FreeBSD
- 6.3.9. HP-UX 11
- 6.3.10. Amiga OS
- 6.3.11. AIX
6.4. Uploading and Releasing Your Package
6.5. After the Release
+
7. Update the Webserver
8. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
-
8.1. Get Support
- 8.2. Report bugs
- 8.3. Request new features
- 8.4. Report ads or other filter problems
+ 8.2. Report Bugs
+ 8.3. Request New Features
+ 8.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
8.5. Other
-9. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
+9. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
9.1. License
9.2. History
+
10. See also
1. Introduction
One does not have to be a programmer to contribute. Packaging, testing, and
porting, are all important jobs as well.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.1. Quickstart to Privoxy Development
For the time being (read, this section is under construction), please refer to
the extensive comments in the source code.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. The CVS Repository
If you intend to help us with programming, documentation or packaging you will
need write access to our holy grail, the CVS repository. Please read this
chapter completely before accessing via CVS.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1. Access to CVS
for your operating system. For historical reasons, the CVS server is called
cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net, the repository is called ijbswa, and the source
tree module is called current.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2. CVS Commit Guideline
therefore ask anyone with CVS access to strictly adhere to the following
guidelines:
- * Never (read: never, ever) be tempted to commit that small change without
+ * Never (read: never, ever) be tempted to commit that small change without
testing it thoroughly first. When we're close to a public release, ask a
fellow developer to review your changes.
- * Your commit message should give a concise overview of what you changed (no
+ * Your commit message should give a concise overview of what you changed (no
big details) and why you changed it Just check previous messages for good
examples.
- * Don't use the same message on multiple files, unless it equally applies to
+ * Don't use the same message on multiple files, unless it equally applies to
all those files.
- * If your changes span multiple files, and the code won't recompile unless
- all changes are commited (e.g. when changing the signature of a function),
- then commit all files one after another, without long delays in beween. If
+ * If your changes span multiple files, and the code won't recompile unless
+ all changes are committed (e.g. when changing the signature of a function),
+ then commit all files one after another, without long delays in between. If
necessary, prepare the commit messages in advance.
- * Before changing things on CVS, make sure that your changes are in line with
+ * Before changing things on CVS, make sure that your changes are in line with
the team's general consensus on what should be done (see below).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.3. Discussing Changes First
We don't have a too formal policy on this, just use common sense. Hints: If it
is..
- 1. ..a bugfix / clean-up / cosmetic thing: shoot
+ 1. ..a bug-fix / clean-up / cosmetic thing: shoot
2. ..a new feature that can be turned off: shoot
5. ..a major redesign of some part of the code: ask the list
+
Note that near a major public release, we get a bit more cautious - if unsure,
it doesn't hurt to ask first. There is always the possibility to submit a patch
to the patches tracker instead.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Documentation Guidelines
2. Run make webserver which copies all files from doc/webserver to the
sourceforge webserver via scp.
+
Finished docs should be occasionally submitted to CVS (doc/webserver/*/*.html)
so that those without the ability to build them locally, have access to them if
needed. This is especially important just prior to a new release! Please do
this after the $VERSION and other release specific data in configure.in has
been updated (this is done just prior to a new release).
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1. Quickstart to Docbook and SGML
You might also find "Writing Documentation Using DocBook - A Crash Course"
useful.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.2. Privoxy Documentation Style
Here it is:
- * All tags should be lower case.
+ * All tags should be lower case.
- * Tags delimiting a block of text (even small blocks) should be on their own
+ * Tags delimiting a block of text (even small blocks) should be on their own
line. Like:
- <para>
- Some text goes here.
- </para>
-
-
+ <para>
+ Some text goes here.
+ </para>
+
Tags marking individual words, or few words, should be in-line:
- Just to <emphasis>emphasize</emphasis>, some text goes here.
-
+ Just to <emphasis>emphasize</emphasis>, some text goes here.
+
- * Tags should be nested and step indented for block text like: (except
+ * Tags should be nested and step indented for block text like: (except
in-line tags)
- <para>
- <itemizedlist>
- <para>
- <listitem>
- Some text goes here in our list example.
- </listitem>
- </para>
- </itemizedlist>
- </para>
-
-
+ <para>
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <para>
+ <listitem>
+ Some text goes here in our list example.
+ </listitem>
+ </para>
+ </itemizedlist>
+ </para>
+
This makes it easier to find the text amongst the tags ;-)
-
- * Use white space to separate logical divisions within a document, like
+ * Use white space to separate logical divisions within a document, like
between sections. Running everything together consistently makes it harder
to read and work on.
- * Do not hesitate to make comments. Comments can either use the <comment>
+ * Do not hesitate to make comments. Comments can either use the <comment>
element, or the <!-- --> style comment familiar from HTML. (Note in Docbook
v4.x <comment> is replaced by <remark>.)
- * We have an international audience. Refrain from slang, or English
+ * We have an international audience. Refrain from slang, or English
idiosyncrasies (too many to list :). Humor also does not translate well
sometimes.
- * Try to keep overall line lengths in source files to 80 characters or less
+ * Try to keep overall line lengths in source files to 80 characters or less
for obvious reasons. This is not always possible, with lengthy URLs for
instance.
- * Our documents are available in differing formats. Right now, they are just
+ * Our documents are available in differing formats. Right now, they are just
plain text, and HTML, but PDF, and others is always a future possibility.
Be careful with URLs (<ulink>), and avoid this mistake:
My favorite site is <ulink url="http://example.com">example.com</ulink>.
- * All documents should be spell checked occasionally. aspell can check SGML
+ * All documents should be spell checked occasionally. aspell can check SGML
with the -H option. (ispell I think too.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.3. Privoxy Custom Entities
Privoxy documentation is using a number of customized "entities" to facilitate
re-setting with each release (done by the Makefile). A sampling of custom
entities are listed below. See any of the main docs for examples.
- * Re- "boilerplate" text entities are defined like:
+ * Re- "boilerplate" text entities are defined like:
<!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
semi-colon), and the contents will be dumped into the finished doc at that
point.
- * Commonly used "internal entities":
+ * Commonly used "internal entities":
- p-version: the Privoxy version string, e.g. "2.9.15".
+ p-version: the Privoxy version string, e.g. "2.9.16".
p-status: the project status, either "alpha", "beta", or "stable".
p-not-stable: use to conditionally include text in "not stable" releases
(e.g. "beta").
p-stable: just the opposite.
p-text: this doc is only generated as text.
+
+
There are others in various places that are defined for a specific purpose.
Read the source!
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Coding Guidelines
And that of course comes back to us as individuals. If we can increase our
development and product efficiencies then we can solve more of the request for
changes/improvements and in general feel good about ourselves. ;->
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2. Using Comments
programming error is occurring.
Example:
-
/* if page size greater than 1k ... */
if ( PageLength() > 1024 )
{
This demonstrates 2 cases of "what not to do". The first is a
"syntax comment". The second is a comment that does not fit what
is actually being done.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2.2. Use blocks for comments
surrounding the code with a clear, definable pattern.
Example:
-
/*********************************************************************
* This will stand out clearly in your code!
*********************************************************************/
If you are trying to add a small logic comment and do not wish to "disrupt" the
flow of the code, feel free to use a 1 line comment which is NOT on the same
line as the code.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2.3. Keep Comments on their own line
used to comment parameters.
Example:
-
/*********************************************************************
* This will stand out clearly in your code,
* But the second example won't.
...code here...
} /* -END- DoSomethingVeryImportant */
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2.4. Comment each logical step
Most "for", "while", "do", etc... loops _probably_ need a comment. After all,
these are usually major logic containers.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2.5. Comment All Functions Thoroughly
function for the problem at hand. As a result of such benefits, all functions
should contain the information presented in the addendum section of this
document.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2.6. Comment at the end of braces if the content is more than one screen
use following a closing brace: } /* -END- if() or while () or etc... */
Example:
-
if ( 1 == X )
{
DoSomethingVeryImportant();
DoSomethingVeryImportant();
...some long list of commands...
} /* -END- if ( 1 == X ) */
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3. Naming Conventions
port Privoxy to C++.
Example:
-
int ms_iis5_hack = 0;
Instead of:
int msiis5hack = 0; int msIis5Hack = 0;
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3.2. Function Names
port Privoxy to C++.
Example:
-
int load_some_file( struct client_state *csp )
Instead of:
int loadsomefile( struct client_state *csp )
int loadSomeFile( struct client_state *csp )
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3.3. Header file prototypes
the same parameter name in the header file that you use in the c file.
Example:
-
(.h) extern int load_aclfile( struct client_state *csp );
(.c) int load_aclfile( struct client_state *csp )
Instead of:
-
(.h) extern int load_aclfile( struct client_state * ); or
(.h) extern int load_aclfile();
(.c) int load_aclfile( struct client_state *csp )
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3.4. Enumerations, and #defines
and system headers.)
Example:
-
(enumeration) : enum Boolean { FALSE, TRUE };
(#define) : #define DEFAULT_SIZE 100;
description.
Example:
-
#define FEATURE_FORCE 1
#ifdef FEATURE_FORCE
#define FORCE_PREFIX blah
#endif /* def FEATURE_FORCE */
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3.5. Constants
terminate a name with an underscore.
Example:
-
#define USE_IMAGE_LIST 1
Instead of:
#define USE_IMAGE_LIST_ 1 or
#define use_image_list 1 or
#define UseImageList 1
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4. Using Space
block.
Example:
-
if ( this == that )
{
...
Status: developer-discretion.
Example exception:
-
while ( more lines are read )
{
/* Please document what is/is not a comment line here */
do_something( line );
}
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4.2. ALL control statements should have a block
to error. All control statements should have a block defined.
Example:
-
if ( this == that )
{
DoSomething();
that which the developer desired (per indentation). Using code braces would
have prevented this "feature". The "explanation" and "exception" from the point
above also applies.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4.3. Do not belabor/blow-up boolean expressions
Example:
-
structure->flag = ( condition );
Instead of:
Note: The former is readable and concise. The later is wordy and inefficient.
Please assume that any developer new to the project has at least a "good"
knowledge of C/C++. (Hope I do not offend by that last comment ... 8-)
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4.4. Use white space freely because it is free
in the next guideline.
Example:
-
int firstValue = 0;
int someValue = 0;
int anotherValue = 0;
if ( thisVariable == thatVariable )
firstValue = oldValue + ( ( someValue - anotherValue ) - whatever )
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4.5. Don't use white space around structure operators
variable/function name is not as clear.
Example:
-
aStruct->aMember;
aStruct.aMember;
FunctionName();
Instead of: aStruct -> aMember; aStruct . aMember; FunctionName ();
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4.6. Make the last brace of a function stand out
Example:
-
int function1( ... )
{
...code...
Status: developer-discretion on the number of blank lines. Enforced is the end
of function comments.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4.7. Use 3 character indentions
your code through a filter such as "expand -t3" before checking in your code.
Example:
-
static const char * const url_code_map[256] =
{
NULL, ...
return( NEVER_GETS_HERE );
}
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.5. Initializing
accidentally using an unassigned variable.
Example:
-
short anShort = 0;
float aFloat = 0;
struct *ptr = NULL;
Status: developer-discretion if and only if the variable is assigned a value
"shortly after" declaration.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6. Functions
true or false statement
Example:
-
ShouldWeBlockThis();
ContainsAnImage();
IsWebPageBlank();
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.2. Always specify a return type for a function.
The default return for a function is an int. To avoid ambiguity, create a
return for a function when the return has a purpose, and create a void return
type if the function does not need to return anything.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.3. Minimize function calls when iterating by using variables
the code is easy to understand:
Example:
-
for ( size_t cnt = 0; cnt < blockListLength(); cnt ++ )
{
....
variable, and evaluate using the variable.
Example:
-
size_t len = blockListLength();
for ( size_t cnt = 0; cnt < len; cnt ++ )
Exceptions: if the value of blockListLength() *may* change or could *
potentially* change, then you must code the function call in the for/while
loop.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.4. Pass and Return by Const Reference
Both these pointers are *const*! If the c runtime library maintainers do it, we
should too.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.5. Pass and Return by Value
would not work. So, to be consistent, we should declare all prototypes with
"pass by value": int load_aclfile( struct client_state *csp )
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.6. Names of include files
other header files.
Example:
-
#include <iostream.h> /* This is not a local include */
#include "config.h" /* This IS a local include */
Note: Please! do not add "-I." to the Makefile without a _very_ good reason.
This duplicates the #include "file.h" behavior.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.7. Provide multiple inclusion protection
to "_", and make it uppercase.
Example:
-
#ifndef PROJECT_H_INCLUDED
#define PROJECT_H_INCLUDED
...
#endif /* ndef PROJECT_H_INCLUDED */
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.8. Use `extern "C"` when appropriate
of our code.
Example:
-
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C"
{
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif /* def __cplusplus */
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6.9. Where Possible, Use Forward Struct Declaration Instead of Includes
excess header files may cause needless compiles.
Example:
-
/*********************************************************************
* We're avoiding an include statement here!
*********************************************************************/
however, the header file is unnecessary.
Status: Use with discretion.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7. General Coding Practices
Compiler warnings are meant to help you find bugs. You should turn on as many
as possible. With GCC, the switch is "-Wall". Try and fix as many warnings as
possible.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.2. Provide a default case for all switch statements
statement.
Example:
-
switch( hash_string( cmd ) )
{
case hash_actions_file :
stream (as in load_config). Or it may really be an ABEND condition.
Status: Programmer discretion is advised.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.3. Try to avoid falling through cases in a switch statement.
If you choose to allow fall through, you should comment both the fact of the
fall through and reason why you felt it was necessary.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.4. Use 'long' or 'short' Instead of 'int'
GNU-Emacs), there are typedefs to int4, int8, int16, (or equivalence ... I
forget the exact typedefs now). Should we add these to IJB now that we have a
"configure" script?
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.5. Don't mix size_t and other types
size_t against another variable of a different type (or even against a
constant) without casting one of the values. Try to avoid using size_t if you
can.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.6. Declare each variable and struct on its own line.
It can be tempting to declare a series of variables all on one line. Don't.
Example:
-
long a = 0;
long b = 0;
long c = 0;
good comment on their functions.
Status: developer-discretion.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.7. Use malloc/zalloc sparingly
the context of one function call.
Example:
-
If a function creates a struct and stores a pointer to it in a
list, then it should definitely be allocated via `malloc'.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.8. The Programmer Who Uses 'malloc' is Responsible for Ensuring 'free'
instance is `free'd, even if the deallocation event falls within some other
programmer's code. You are also responsible for ensuring that deletion is
timely (i.e. not too soon, not too late). This is known as "low-coupling" and
-is a "good thing (tm)". You may need to offer a free/unload/destuctor type
+is a "good thing (tm)". You may need to offer a free/unload/destructor type
function to accommodate this.
Example:
-
int load_re_filterfile( struct client_state *csp ) { ... }
static void unload_re_filterfile( void *f ) { ... }
Status: developer-discretion. The "main" use of this standard is for allocating
and freeing data structures (complex or nested).
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.9. Add loaders to the `file_list' structure and in order
Note: It may appear that the alpha order is broken in places by POPUP tests
coming before PCRS tests. But since POPUPs can also be referred to as
KILLPOPUPs, it is clear that it should come first.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7.10. "Uncertain" new code and/or changes to existing code, use FIXME
Note: If you make it clear that this may or may not be a "good thing (tm)", it
will be easier to identify and include in the project (or conversely exclude
from the project).
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.8. Addendum: Template for files and function comment blocks:
Example for file comments:
-
-const char FILENAME_rcs[] = "$Id: developer-manual.sgml,v 1.42 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9 Exp $";
-/*********************************************************************
- *
- * File : $Source$
- *
- * Purpose : (Fill me in with a good description!)
- *
- * Copyright : Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
- * Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
- *
- * Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
- * by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
- * Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
- *
- * This program 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.
- *
- * The GNU General Public License should be included with
- * this file. If not, you can view it at
- * http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
- * or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
- * Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
- *
- * Revisions :
- * $Log$
- *
- *********************************************************************/
-
-
-#include "config.h"
-
- ...necessary include files for us to do our work...
-
-const char FILENAME_h_rcs[] = FILENAME_H_VERSION;
+const char FILENAME_rcs[] = "$Id: developer-manual.sgml,v 1.46.2.4 2002/05/29 00:30:59 mal0rd Exp $";
+/*********************************************************************
+ *
+ * File : $Source$
+ *
+ * Purpose : (Fill me in with a good description!)
+ *
+ * Copyright : Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
+ * Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
+ *
+ * Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
+ * by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
+ * Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
+ *
+ * This program 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.
+ *
+ * The GNU General Public License should be included with
+ * this file. If not, you can view it at
+ * http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
+ * or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
+ * Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
+ *
+ * Revisions :
+ * $Log$
+ *
+ *********************************************************************/
+
+
+#include "config.h"
+
+ ...necessary include files for us to do our work...
+
+const char FILENAME_h_rcs[] = FILENAME_H_VERSION;
Note: This declares the rcs variables that should be added to the
"show-proxy-args" page. If this is a brand new creation by you, you are free to
can.
Example for file header comments:
-
-#ifndef _FILENAME_H
-#define _FILENAME_H
-#define FILENAME_H_VERSION "$Id: developer-manual.sgml,v 1.42 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9 Exp $"
-/*********************************************************************
- *
- * File : $Source$
- *
- * Purpose : (Fill me in with a good description!)
- *
- * Copyright : Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
- * Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
- *
- * Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
- * by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
- * Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
- *
- * This program 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.
- *
- * The GNU General Public License should be included with
- * this file. If not, you can view it at
- * http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
- * or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
- * Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
- *
- * Revisions :
- * $Log$
- *
- *********************************************************************/
-
-
-#include "project.h"
-
-#ifdef __cplusplus
-extern "C" {
-#endif
-
- ... function headers here ...
-
-
-/* Revision control strings from this header and associated .c file */
-extern const char FILENAME_rcs[];
-extern const char FILENAME_h_rcs[];
-
-
-#ifdef __cplusplus
-} /* extern "C" */
-#endif
-
-#endif /* ndef _FILENAME_H */
-
-/*
- Local Variables:
- tab-width: 3
- end:
-*/
+#ifndef _FILENAME_H
+#define _FILENAME_H
+#define FILENAME_H_VERSION "$Id: developer-manual.sgml,v 1.46.2.4 2002/05/29 00:30:59 mal0rd Exp $"
+/*********************************************************************
+ *
+ * File : $Source$
+ *
+ * Purpose : (Fill me in with a good description!)
+ *
+ * Copyright : Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
+ * Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
+ *
+ * Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
+ * by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
+ * Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
+ *
+ * This program 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.
+ *
+ * The GNU General Public License should be included with
+ * this file. If not, you can view it at
+ * http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
+ * or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
+ * Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
+ *
+ * Revisions :
+ * $Log$
+ *
+ *********************************************************************/
+
+
+#include "project.h"
+
+#ifdef __cplusplus
+extern "C" {
+#endif
+
+ ... function headers here ...
+
+
+/* Revision control strings from this header and associated .c file */
+extern const char FILENAME_rcs[];
+extern const char FILENAME_h_rcs[];
+
+
+#ifdef __cplusplus
+} /* extern "C" */
+#endif
+
+#endif /* ndef _FILENAME_H */
+
+/*
+ Local Variables:
+ tab-width: 3
+ end:
+*/
Example for function comments:
-
/*********************************************************************
*
* Function : FUNCTION_NAME
Note: If we all follow this practice, we should be able to parse our code to
create a "self-documenting" web page.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Testing Guidelines
To be filled.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.1. Testplan for releases
2. Remove any file that was left over. This includes (but is not limited to)
- + /var/log/privoxy
+ + /var/log/privoxy
- + /etc/privoxy
+ + /etc/privoxy
- + /usr/sbin/privoxy
+ + /usr/sbin/privoxy
- + /etc/init.d/privoxy
+ + /etc/init.d/privoxy
- + /usr/doc/privoxy*
+ + /usr/doc/privoxy*
+
3. Install the rpm. Any error messages?
4. start,stop,status Privoxy with the specific script (e.g. /etc/rc.d/init/
6. Remove the rpm. Any error messages? All files removed?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2. Test reports
Please submit test reports only with the test form at sourceforge. Three simple
steps:
- * Select category: the distribution you test on.
+ * Select category: the distribution you test on.
- * Select group: the version of Privoxy that we are about to release.
+ * Select group: the version of Privoxy that we are about to release.
- * Fill the Summary and Detailed Description with something intelligent (keep
+ * Fill the Summary and Detailed Description with something intelligent (keep
it short and precise).
-Do not mail to the mailinglist (we cannot keep track on issues there).
+Do not mail to the mailing list (we cannot keep track on issues there).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Releasing a New Version
The following programs are required to follow this process: ncftpput (ncftp),
scp, ssh (ssh), gmake (GNU's version of make), autoconf, cvs.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1. Version numbers
version numbers consist of three numbers, separated by dots, like in X.Y.Z,
where:
- * X, the version major, is rarely ever changed. It is increased by one if
+ * X, the version major, is rarely ever changed. It is increased by one if
turning a development branch into stable substantially changes the
- functionality, user interface or configuration syntax. Majors 1 and 2 were
+ functionality, user interface or configuration syntax. Majors 1 and 2 were
Junkbuster, and 3 will be the first stable Privoxy release.
- * Y, the version minor, represents the branch within the major version. At
+ * Y, the version minor, represents the branch within the major version. At
any point in time, there are two branches being maintained: The stable
branch, with an even minor, say, 2N, in which no functionality is being
- added and only bugfixes are made, and 2N+1, the development branch, in
+ added and only bug-fixes are made, and 2N+1, the development branch, in
which the further development of Privoxy takes place. This enables us to
turn the code upside down and inside out, while at the same time providing
and maintaining a stable version. The minor is reset to zero (and one) when
- the major is inrcemented. When a development branch has matured to the
+ the major is incremented. When a development branch has matured to the
point where it can be turned into stable, the old stable branch 2N is given
up (i.e. no longer maintained), the former development branch 2N+1 becomes
the new stable branch 2N+2, and a new development branch 2N+3 is opened.
- * Z, the point or sub version, represents a release of the software within a
+ * Z, the point or sub version, represents a release of the software within a
branch. It is therefore incremented immediately before each code freeze. In
development branches, only the even point versions correspond to actual
releases, while the odd ones denote the evolving state of the sources on
distinguished from released versions. The point version is reset to zero
when the minor changes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2. Before the Release: Freeze
The following must be done by one of the developers prior to each new release.
- * Make sure that everybody who has worked on the code in the last couple of
+ * Make sure that everybody who has worked on the code in the last couple of
days has had a chance to yell "no!" in case they have pending changes/fixes
in their pipelines. Announce the freeze so that nobody will interfere with
last minute changes.
- * Increment the version number (point from odd to even in development
+ * Increment the version number (point from odd to even in development
branches!) in configure.in.
- * If default.action has changed since last release (i.e. software release or
+ * If default.action has changed since last release (i.e. software release or
standalone actions file release), bump up its version info to A.B in this
line:
Then change the version info in doc/webserver/actions/index.php, line:
'$required_actions_file_version = "A.B";'
- * If the HTML documentation is not in sync with the SGML sources you need to
+ * If the HTML documentation is not in sync with the SGML sources you need to
regenerate and upload it to the webserver. (If in doubt, just do it.) See
the Section "Updating the webserver" in this manual for details.
- * Commit all files that were changed in the above steps!
+ * Commit all files that were changed in the above steps!
- * Tag all files in CVS with the version number with "cvs tag v_X_Y_Z". Don't
+ * Tag all files in CVS with the version number with "cvs tag v_X_Y_Z". Don't
use vX_Y_Z, ver_X_Y_Z, v_X.Y.Z (won't work) etc.
- * If the release was in a development branch, increase the point version from
+ * If the release was in a development branch, increase the point version from
even to odd (X.Y.(Z+1)) again in configure.in and commit your change.
- * On the webserver, copy the user manual to a new top-level directory called
+ * On the webserver, copy the user manual to a new top-level directory called
X.Y.Z. This ensures that help links from the CGI pages, which have the
version as a prefix, will go into the right version of the manual. If this
is a development branch release, also symlink X.Y.(Z-1) to X.Y.Z and X.Y.
(Z+1) to . (i.e. dot).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.3. Building and Releasing the Packages
Now the individual packages can be built and released. Note that for GPL
them, all future bug reports, are based on exactly the same code.
Please find additional instructions for the source tarball and the individual
-platform dependent binary packages below.
-
+platform dependent binary packages below. And details on the Sourceforge
+release process below that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.1. Source Tarball
+6.3.1. Note on Privoxy Packaging
+
+Please keep these general guidelines in mind when putting together your
+package. These apply to all platforms!
+
+ * Privoxy requires write access to: all *.action files, all logfiles, and the
+ trust file. You will need to determine the best way to do this for your
+ platform.
+
+ * Please include up to date documentation. At a bare minimum:
+
+ LICENSE (top-level directory)
+
+ README (top-level directory)
+
+ AUTHORS (top-level directory)
+
+ man page (top-level directory, Unix-like platforms only)
+
+ The User Manual (doc/webserver/user-manual/)
+
+ FAQ (doc/webserver/faq/)
+
+ Also suggested: Developer Manual (doc/webserver/developer-manual) and
+ ChangeLog (top-level directory). FAQ and the manuals are HTML docs. There
+ are also text versions in doc/text/ which could conceivably also be
+ included.
+
+ The documentation has been designed such that the manuals are linked to
+ each other from parallel directories, and should be packaged that way.
+ privoxy-index.html can also be included and can serve as a focal point for
+ docs and other links of interest (and possibly renamed to index.html). This
+ should be one level up from the manuals. There is a link also on this page
+ to an HTMLized version of the man page. To avoid 404 for this, it is in CVS
+ as doc/webserver/man-page/privoxy-man-page.html, and should be included
+ along with the manuals. There is also a css stylesheets that can be
+ included for better presentation: p_doc.css. This should be in the same
+ directory with privoxy-index.html, (i.e. one level up from the manual
+ directories).
+
+ * user.action is designed for local preferences. Make sure this does not get
+ overwritten!
+
+ * Other configuration files should be installed as the new defaults, but all
+ previously installed configuration files should be preserved as backups.
+ This is just good manners :-)
+
+ * Please check platform specific notes in this doc, if you haven't done
+ "Privoxy" packaging before for other platform specific issues. Conversely,
+ please add any notes that you know are important for your platform (or
+ contact one of the doc maintainers to do this if you can't).
+
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+6.3.2. Source Tarball
First, make sure that you have freshly exported the right version into an empty
directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then run:
Go to the displayed URL and release the file publicly on Sourceforge. For the
change log field, use the relevant section of the ChangeLog file.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.2. SuSE or Red Hat RPM
+6.3.3. SuSE, Conectiva or Red Hat RPM
In following text, replace dist with either "rh" for Red Hat or "suse" for
SuSE.
where rpm_packagerev is the RPM release number as determined above. Go to the
displayed URL and release the file publicly on Sourceforge. Use the release
notes and change log from the source tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.3. OS/2
+6.3.4. OS/2
First, make sure that you have freshly exported the right version into an empty
directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then get the OS/2
Upload this anonymously to uploads.sourceforge.net/incoming, create a release
for it, and you're done. Use the release notes and Change Log from the source
tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.4. Solaris
+6.3.5. Solaris
Login to Sourceforge's compilefarm via ssh:
on the Sourceforge machine (no ncftpput). You now have to manually upload the
archive to Sourceforge's ftp server and release the file publicly. Use the
release notes and Change Log from the source tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.5. Windows
+6.3.6. Windows
You should ensure you have the latest version of Cygwin (from http://
www.cygwin.com/). Run the following commands from within a Cygwin bash shell.
directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then get the Windows
setup module:
- cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co winsetup
+ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co winsetup
Then you can build the package. This is fully automated, and is controlled by
winsetup/GNUmakefile. All you need to do is:
- cd winsetup
- make
+ cd winsetup
+ make
Now you can manually rename privoxy_setup.exe to privoxy_setup_X_Y_Z.exe, and
upload it to SourceForge. When releasing the package on SourceForge, use the
release notes and Change Log from the source tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.6. Debian
+6.3.7. Debian
First, make sure that you have freshly exported the right version into an empty
-directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then, run:
+directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then add a log entry
+to debian/changelog, if it is not already there, for example by running:
- cd current
- autoheader && autoconf && ./configure
+ debchange -v 2.9.16-beta-1 "New upstream version"
-Then do FIXME.
+Then, run:
+
+ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc -b
+This will create ../privoxy_2.9.16-beta-1_i386.deb which can be uploaded. To
+upload the package to Sourceforge, simply issue
+
+ make debian-upload
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.7. Mac OSX
+6.3.8. Mac OSX
First, make sure that you have freshly exported the right version into an empty
directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then get the Mac OSX
specify ./Privoxy.pkg as the output package name, you can then create the
distributable zip file with the command:
-zip -r privoxyosx_setup_x.y.z.zip Privoxy.pkg
+ zip -r privoxyosx_setup_x.y.z.zip Privoxy.pkg
You can then upload privoxyosx_setup_x.y.z.zip anonymously to
uploads.sourceforge.net/incoming, create a release for it, and you're done. Use
the release notes and Change Log from the source tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.8. FreeBSD
+6.3.9. FreeBSD
-Login to Sourceforge's compilefarm via ssh:
+Login to Sourceforge's compile-farm via ssh:
ssh cf.sourceforge.net
on the Sourceforge machine (no ncftpput). You now have to manually upload the
archive to Sourceforge's ftp server and release the file publicly. Use the
release notes and Change Log from the source tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.9. HP-UX 11
+6.3.10. HP-UX 11
First, make sure that you have freshly exported the right version into an empty
directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then run:
autoheader && autoconf && ./configure
Then do FIXME.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.10. Amiga OS
+6.3.11. Amiga OS
First, make sure that you have freshly exported the right version into an empty
directory. (See "Building and releasing packages" above). Then run:
autoheader && autoconf && ./configure
Then do FIXME.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3.11. AIX
+6.3.12. AIX
Login to Sourceforge's compilefarm via ssh:
the Sourceforge machine (no ncftpput). You now have to manually upload the
archive to Sourceforge's ftp server and release the file publicly. Use the
release notes and Change Log from the source tarball package.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.4. Uploading and Releasing Your Package
After the package is ready, it is time to upload it to SourceForge, and go
through the release steps. The upload is done via FTP:
- * Upload to: ftp://upload.sourceforge.net/incoming
+ * Upload to: ftp://upload.sourceforge.net/incoming
- * user: anonymous
+ * user: anonymous
- * password: ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
+ * password: ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
+
+Or use the make targets as described above.
+
Once this done go to http://sourceforge.net/project/admin/editpackages.php?
group_id=11118, making sure you are logged in. Find your target platform in the
second column, and click Add Release. You will then need to create a new
release for your package, using the format of $VERSION ($CODE_STATUS), e.g.
-2.9.15 (beta).
+2.9.16 (beta).
Now just follow the prompts. Be sure to add any appropriate Release notes. You
should see your freshly uploaded packages in "Step 2. Add Files To This
-Release". Check the appropriate box(es). Remember at each step to hit the
+Release". Check the appropriate box(es). Remember at each step to hit the
"Refresh/Submit" buttons! You should now see your file(s) listed in Step 3.
Fill out the forms with the appropriate information for your platform, being
sure to hit "Update" for each file. If anyone is monitoring your platform,
If you have made errors, or need to make changes, you can go through
essentially the same steps, but select Edit Release, instead of Add Release.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.5. After the Release
an email to the announce mailing list, Subject: "Version X.Y.Z available for
download". Be sure to include the download location, the release notes and the
change log.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Update the Webserver
When updating the webserver, please follow these steps to make sure that no
-broken links, incosistent contents or permission problems will occur:
+broken links, inconsistent contents or permission problems will occur:
If you have changed anything in the documentation source SGML files, do:
- make dok # (or make redkat-dok if make dok doesn't work for you)
+ make dok # (or make redhat-dok if make dok doesn't work for you)
That will generate doc/webserver/user-manual, doc/webserver/developer-manual,
doc/webserver/faq and doc/webserver/index.html automatically.
Please do NOT use any other means of transferring files to the webserver to
avoid permission problems.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
-We value your feedback. However, to provide you with the best support, please
-note the following sections.
-
+We value your feedback. In fact, we rely on it to improve Privoxy and its
+configuration. However, please note the following hints, so we can provide you
+with the best support:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1. Get Support
-To get support, use the Sourceforge Support Forum:
-
- http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118
+For casual users, our support forum at SourceForge is probably best suited:
+http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118
+All users are of course welcome to discuss their issues on the users mailing
+list, where the developers also hang around.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-8.2. Report bugs
+8.2. Report Bugs
-To submit bugs, use the Sourceforge Bug Forum:
+Please report all bugs only through our bug tracker: http://sourceforge.net/
+tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
- http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
+Before doing so, please make sure that the bug has not already been submitted
+and observe the additional hints at the top of the submit form.
-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. Please be
-sure to include the Privoxy version, platform, browser, any pertinent log data,
-any other relevant details (please be specific) and, if possible, some way to
-reproduce the bug.
+Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug
+first. If unsure, try toggling off Privoxy, and see if the problem persists.
+The appendix of the user manual also has helpful information on action
+debugging. If you are using your own custom configuration, please try the stock
+configs to see if the problem is configuration related.
+If not using the latest version, chances are that the bug has been found and
+fixed in the meantime. We would appreciate if you could take the time to
+upgrade to the latest version (or even the latest CVS snapshot) and verify your
+bug, but this is not required for reporting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-8.3. Request new features
-
-To submit ideas on new features, use the Sourceforge feature request forum:
-
- http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118&func=browse.
+8.3. Request New Features
+You are welcome to submit ideas on new features or other proposals for
+improvement through our feature request tracker at http://sourceforge.net/
+tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-8.4. Report ads or other filter problems
+8.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
-You can also send feedback on websites that Privoxy has problems with. Please
-bookmark the following link: "Privoxy - Submit Filter Feedback". Once you surf
-to a page with problems, use the bookmark to send us feedback. We will look
-into the issue as soon as possible.
+Please send feedback on ads that slipped through, innocent images that were
+blocked, and any other problems relating to the default.action file through our
+actions feedback mechanism located at http://www.privoxy.org/actions/. On this
+page, you will also find a bookmark which will take you back there from any
+troubled site and even pre-fill the form!
New, improved default.action files will occasionally be made available based on
-your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list.
-
+your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list and
+available from our the files section of our project page.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5. Other
-For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists:
-
- http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=11118.
-
-Anyone interested in actively participating in development and related
-discussions can also join the appropriate mailing list. Archives are available,
-too. See the page on Sourceforge.
-
+For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists. Technically
+interested users and people who wish to contribute to the project are also
+welcome on the developers list! You can find an overview of all Privoxy-related
+mailing lists, including list archives, at: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?
+group_id=11118.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
Some source code is based on code Copyright © 1997 by Anonymous Coders and
Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.1. License
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the
- Free Software
- Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
- Boston, MA 02111-1307
- USA
-
+ Free Software
+ Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
+ Boston, MA 02111-1307
+ USA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.2. History
-Privoxy is evolved, and derived from, the Internet Junkbuster, with many
-improvments and enhancements over the original.
+In the beginning, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
+Junkbusters Corporation. It saved many users a lot of pain in the early days of
+web advertising and user tracking.
+
+But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
+forcing users to consume ads, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for
+spying on them, kept evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not.
+Version 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release
+available from Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under
+the GNU GPL, which allowed further development by others.
+
+So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
+which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
+replace banners with a transparent image, and had a first version of pop-up
+killing, but it was still very closely based on the original, with all its
+limitations, such as the lack of HTTP/1.1 support, flexible per-site
+configuration, or content modification. The last release from this effort was
+version 2.0.2-10, published in 2000.
-Junkbuster was originally written by Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters
-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 ;-).
+Then, some developers picked up the thread, and started turning the software
+inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many new features
+along the way.
+The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable release, 3.0, is due in June
+2002.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. See also
Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
-http://www.privoxy.org/, The Privoxy Home page.
+http://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.
+
+http://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.
+
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/, the Project Page for Privoxy on
+SourceForge.
-http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa, the Project Page for Privoxy on
-Sourceforge.
+http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface. Privoxy must be
+running for this to work. Shortcut: http://p.p/
-http://p.p/, access Privoxy from your browser. Alternately, http://
-config.privoxy.org may work in some situations where the first does not.
+http://www.privoxy.org/actions/, to submit "misses" to the developers.
-http://p.p/, and select "Privoxy - Submit Filter Feedback" to submit "misses"
-to the developers.
+http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explanation how cookies are
+used to track web users.
-http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html
+http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html, the original Internet Junkbuster.
-http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/
+http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/, Stefan Waldherr's version of Junkbuster,
+from which Privoxy was derived.
-http://privacy.net/analyze/
+http://privacy.net/analyze/, a useful site to check what information about you
+is leaked while you browse the web.
-http://www.squid-cache.org/
+http://www.squid-cache.org/, a very popular caching proxy, which is often used
+together with Privoxy.
-
+http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.
Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Privoxy Developers
-$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.57 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9 Exp $
+$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.61.2.5 2002/07/26 15:22:58 oes Exp $
-This FAQ gives users and developers alike answers to frequently asked questions
-about Privoxy .
+
+This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about Privoxy . It
+can't and doesn't replace the User Manual.
Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting
privacy, filtering web page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and
Please see the Contact section if you want to contact the developers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Table of Contents
1. General Information
-
1.1. What is this new version of Privoxy?
1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
1.3. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
- 1.4. What are some of the new features?
- 1.5. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
- 1.6. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
- 1.7. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
- 1.8. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy
+ 1.4. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
+ 1.5. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
+ 1.6. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
+ 1.7. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy
at all?
- 1.9. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
- 1.10. I would like to help you, what do I do?
+ 1.8. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
+ 1.9. I would like to help you, what do I do?
+ 1.9.1. Money Money Money
+ 1.9.2. Software
+ 1.9.3. You want to work with us?
- 1.10.1. Money Money Money
- 1.10.2. You want to work with us?
-2. Installation
+
+2. Installation
2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
2.3. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
2.6. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are
there. What's wrong?
-3. Configuration
- 3.1. Can I use my old config files?
- 3.2. What is an "actions" file?
- 3.3. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these
- "actions".
- 3.4. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
- 3.5. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
- 3.6. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
+3. Configuration
+ 3.1. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
+ 3.2. Can I use my old config files?
+ 3.3. What is an "actions" file?
+ 3.4. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions"
+ .
+ 3.5. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
+ 3.6. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
+ 3.7. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/GMX account work?
+ 3.8. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Advanced"
+ defaults?
+ 3.9. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
security issues?
- 3.7. What is "default.filter"?
- 3.8. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
- 3.9. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
+ 3.10. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
+ 3.11. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
+ 3.12. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
anything.
- 3.10. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
- 3.11. I see large red banners on some pages that say "Blocked". Why and how
- do I get rid of this?
- 3.12. I cannot see all of the "Blocked" page banner. Help.
- 3.13. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT?
- 3.14. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
- 3.15. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
+ 3.13. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
+ 3.14. I see some images being replaced by a text instead of the
+ checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?
+ 3.15. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT?
+ 3.16. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
+ 3.17. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
-4. Miscellaneous
+4. Miscellaneous
4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra
time to browsing.
4.2. I noticed considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
Junkbuster. What's wrong?
- 4.3. What is the "http://p.p/"?
+ 4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
4.4. Do you still maintain the blocklists?
4.5. How can I submit new ads?
4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
- 4.8. Might some things break because header information is being altered?
+ 4.8. Might some things break because header information or content is being
+ altered?
4.9. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
4.10. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
- 4.11. The Privoxy logo that replaces ads is very blocky and ugly looking.
- Can't a better font be used?
- 4.12. I have large empty spaces now where ads used to be. Why?
- 4.13. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
- 4.14. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
+ 4.11. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used
+ to be. Why?
+ 4.12. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
+ 4.13. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
special precautions?
- 4.15. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+ 4.14. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+ 4.15. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
4.16. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
-5. Troubleshooting
+5. Troubleshooting
5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every web
page?
5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
How?
5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
+ 5.4. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
+ gives?
+ 5.5. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy seems to be blocking me.
-6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
6.1. Get Support
- 6.2. Report bugs
- 6.3. Request new features
- 6.4. Report ads or other filter problems
+ 6.2. Report Bugs
+ 6.3. Request New Features
+ 6.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
6.5. Other
-7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
+7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
7.1. License
7.2. History
+
+
1. General Information
1.1. What is this new version of Privoxy?
-The original Internet JunkbusterTM (tm) is a copyrighted product of Junkbusters
-Corporation. Development of this effort stopped some time ago as of version
-2.0.2. Stefan Waldherr started the ijbswa project on Sourceforge to rekindle
-development. Other developers subsequently joined with Stefan, and have since
-added many new features, refinements and enhancements. The result of this
-effort is Privoxy.
-
-Privoxy has evolved from the Junkbuster 2.0.2 code base, and has advanced
-significantly at this point.
-
-Please see the History section for more information on the history of
-Junkbuster and Privoxy.
-
+In the beginning, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
+Junkbusters Corporation. It saved many users a lot of pain in the early days of
+web advertising and user tracking.
+
+But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
+forcing users to consume ads, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for
+spying on them, kept evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not.
+Version 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release
+available from Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under
+the GNU GPL, which allowed further development by others.
+
+So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
+which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
+replace banners with a transparent image, and had a first version of pop-up
+killing, but it was still very closely based on the original, with all its
+limitations, such as the lack of HTTP/1.1 support, flexible per-site
+configuration, or content modification. The last release from this effort was
+version 2.0.2-10, published in 2000.
+
+Then, some developers picked up the thread, and started turning the software
+inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many new features
+along the way.
+
+The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable release, 3.0, is due in June
+2002.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
-Privoxy is the "Privacy Enhancing Proxy".
+Privoxy is the "Privacy Enhancing Proxy". Also, its content modification and
+junk suppression allow you to browse your "private edition" of the web.
-There are potential legal complications from the continued use of the
+Junkbusters Corporation continues to offer their original version of the
+Internet Junkbuster, so publishing our Junkbuster-derived software under the
+same name led to confusion.
+
+There are also potential legal complications from the continued use of the
Junkbuster name, which is a registered trademark of Junkbusters Corporation.
-And thus they "own" the rights to the name. (There are, however, no objections
-from Junkbusters Corporation to the Privoxy project itself, and they, in fact,
-still share our ideals and goals.)
+There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the Privoxy
+project itself, and they, in fact, still share our ideals and goals.
The developers also believed that there are so many changes from the original
code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make a name in
their own right, especially now with the pending release of version 3.0.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.3. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
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 if you are upgrading from Junkbuster 2.0.x.
-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.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+users will notice right off the bat if upgrading from Junkbuster 2.0.x. The
+"blocklist" "cookielist", "imagelist" and much more has been combined into the
+"actions" files, with a completely different syntax. See the note to upgraders
+for details.
-1.4. What are some of the new features?
+Privoxy's new features include:
- * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
+ * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
config.privoxy.org/ (shortcut: http://p.p/). Browser-based tracing of rule
and filter effects. Remote toggling.
- * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
+ * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
"web-bugs", JavaScript and HTML annoyances, pop-up windows, etc.)
- * Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
+ * Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
settings to reside in separate files, so that installing updated actions
- files won't overwrite idividual user settings.
+ files won't overwrite individual user settings.
- * HTTP/1.1 compliant (but not all optional 1.1 features are supported).
+ * HTTP/1.1 compliant (but not all optional 1.1 features are supported).
- * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
+ * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
and generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
previous versions.
- * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
- * GIF de-animation.
+ * GIF de-animation.
- * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
- * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+ * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
- * User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
+ * User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
"blocked" page).
- * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+ * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
- * Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
+ * Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
- * Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
+ * Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
configuration more powerful and versatile over-all.
- * Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
+ * Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
holes fixed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-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.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+1.4. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
+
+A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as Privoxy, that clients
+(i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting directly to the web servers on
+the Internet. The clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects they need
+(web pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy has done
+so, it hands the results back to the client.
+
+There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
+efficiency (caching) and others, and there are just as many different proxies
+to accommodate those needs.
+
+Privoxy is a proxy that is solely focused on privacy protection and junk
+elimination. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet, it is in a
+perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your browser is
+leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do this,
+all of which are under your control via the various configuration files and
+options.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-1.6. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
+1.5. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
-Privoxy processes all the raw content of every web page. So it reads everything
-on each page. It then compares this to the rules as set up in the configuration
-files, and looks for any matches to these rules. Privoxy makes heavy use of
-"regular expressions". (If you are not familiar with regular expressions, it is
-explained briefly in the user manual.) Regular expressions facilitate matching
-of one text string against another, using wildcards to build complex patterns.
-So Privoxy will typically look for URLs and other content that match certain
-key words and expressions as defined in the configuration files. For instance a
-URL that contains "/banners", has a high probability of containing ad banners,
-and thus would be a prime candidate to have a matching rule.
+Privoxy's approach to blocking ads is twofold:
-So Privoxy will look for these kinds of obvious looking culprits. And also,
-will use lists of known organizations that specialize in ads. Again, using
-complex patterns to match as many potential combinations as possible since
-there tend to be many, many variations used by advertisers, and new ones are
-being introduced all the time.
+First, there are certain patterns in the locations (URLs) of banner images.
+This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many web sites serve
+their banners from a directory called "banners"!) and the host (blocking the
+big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net already helps a lot). Privoxy
+takes advantage of this fact by using URL patterns to sort out and block the
+requests for banners.
+Second, banners tend to come in certain sizes. But you can't tell the size of
+an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you do, it's too late to
+save bandwidth. Therefore, Privoxy also inspects the HTML sources of web pages
+while they are loaded, and replaces references to images with standard banner
+sizes by dummy references, so that your browser doesn't request them anymore in
+the first place.
+
+Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
+configurable.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-1.7. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
+1.6. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
-rule accidentally block something by mistake. There is a good chance you may
-run into such a situation at some point. It is tricky writing rules to cover
-every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
+rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. There is a good chance
+you may run into such a situation at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
+cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
But this should not be a big concern since the Privoxy configuration is very
flexible, and includes tools to help identify these types of situations so they
can be addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation. (See
the Troubleshooting section below.)
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-1.8. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at
+1.7. 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
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.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-1.9. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
+1.8. 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.
copyright. Or the LICENSE file that should be included.
There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise. That is
-something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
+something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
Privoxy really is free in every respect!
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-1.10. I would like to help you, what do I do?
+1.9. I would like to help you, what do I do?
+
+1.9.1. Money Money Money
-1.10.1. Money Money Money
+We, of course, welcome donations and could use money for domain registering,
+buying software to test Privoxy with, and, of course, for regular world-wide
+get-togethers (hahaha). If you enjoy the software and feel like helping us with
+a donation, just drop us a note.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-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.
+1.9.2. Software
+If you are a vendor of a web-related software like a browser, web server or
+proxy, and would like us to ensure that Privoxy runs smoothly with your
+product, you might consider supplying us with a copy or license. We can't,
+however, guarantee that we will fix all potential compatibility issues as a
+result.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-1.10.2. You want to work with us?
+1.9.3. 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 Developer's Manual.
+Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers,
+packaging gurus or documentation writers. Simply get an account on
+SourceForge.net and mail your id to the developers mailing list. Then read the
+Developer's 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.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Installation
2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
-Any browser that can be configured to use a "proxy", which should be virtually
+Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which should be virtually
all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary since Privoxy runs as a
-separate application and just exchanges standard HTML data with your browser,
-just like a web server does.
-
+separate application and talks to the browser in the standardized HTTP
+protocol, just like a web server does.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
At present, Privoxy is known to run on Windows(95, 98, ME, 2000, XP), Linux
-(RedHat, Suse, Debian), Mac OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BeOS, and many
-more flavors of Unix.
+(RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Conectiva), Mac OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS, BeOS, FreeBSD,
+NetBSD, Solaris, and many more flavors of Unix.
-But any operating system that runs TCP/IP, can conceivably take advantage of
+But any operating system that runs TCP/IP, can conceivably take advantage of
Privoxy in a networked situation where Privoxy would run as a server on a LAN
gateway. Then only the "gateway" needs to be running one of the above operating
systems.
-Source code is freely available, so porting to other operating systems, is
+Source code is freely available, so porting to other operating systems is
always a possibility.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.3. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
-We recommend you uninstall Junkbuster first to minimize conflicts and
+We recommend you un-install 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.
-
-Note: Some installers may automatically uninstall Junkbuster, if present!
+reference. The configuration files and syntax have substantially changed, so
+you will need to manually port your old patterns. See the note to upgraders and
+installation chapter in the user manual for details.
+Note: Some installers may automatically un-install Junkbuster, if present!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. Also, you should flush your browser's memory and disk cache
-to get rid of any cached items.
-
+browser. See below. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache
+to get rid of any cached junk items.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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).
+127.0.0.1 (sometimes referred to as "localhost", which is the special name used
+by every computer on the Internet to refer to itself) and the port will be 8118
+(unless you 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.
+When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter the word
+"localhost" or the IP address "127.0.0.1" in the boxes next to "HTTP" and
+"Secure" (HTTPS) and then the number "8118" for "port". This tells your browser
+to send all web requests to Privoxy instead of directly to the Internet.
Privoxy can also be used to proxy for a Local Area Network. In this case, your
would enter either the IP address of the LAN host where Privoxy is running, or
-the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be same as above.
+the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
+Privoxy doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by default.
Privoxy does not currently handle protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, or
other Internet protocols.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.6. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are there.
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.
-
+browser is correctly configured by entering the special URL: http://
+config.privoxy.org/. This should take you to a page titled "This is Privoxy.."
+with access to Privoxy's internal configuration. If you see this, then you are
+good to go. If you receive a page saying "Privoxy is not running", then the
+browser is not set up to use your Privoxy installation. If you receive anything
+else (probably nothing at all), it could either be that the browser is not set
+up correctly, or that Privoxy is not running at all. Check the log file.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Configuration
-3.1. Can I use my old config files?
+3.1. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
-There are major changes to Junkbuster/ Privoxy configuration from version 2.0.x
-to 2.9.x and later. Most of the older files will not work at all. This is
-especially true of blocklist. If this is the case, you will need to re-enter
-your old data into the new configuration structure. This is probably also a
-good recommendation even if upgrading from 2.9.x to 3.x since there were many
-minor changes along the way.
+Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updated actions files
+will be made available on the files section of our project page.
+If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
+Privoxy or the actions file, subscribe to our announce mailing list,
+ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-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 where needed.
-
-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.
+3.2. Can I use my old config files?
+The syntax, number, and purpose of configuration files has substantially
+changed from Junkbuster and earlier versions of Privoxy. The old files, like
+blocklist will not work at all. If you are upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you
+will need to port your configuration data to the new format. Note that even the
+pattern syntax has changed! Even configuration files from the 2.9.x versions
+will need to be adapted, as configuration syntax has been very much in flow in
+the 2.9.x series.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.3. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions".
+3.3. What is an "actions" file?
-These are all explained in the user-manual. Please refer to that.
+Actions files are where various actions that Privoxy might take while
+processing a certain request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set
+of default actions that apply to all URLs, then add exceptions to these
+defaults where needed.
+Actions can be defined on a URL pattern basis, i.e. for single URLs, whole web
+sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be grouped together and
+then applied to requests matching one or more patterns. There are many possible
+actions that might apply to any given site. As an example, if you are blocking
+cookies as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given
+site, you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your
+actions files, preferably in user.action
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.4. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
+3.4. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions".
-The easiest way to do this, is to access Privoxy with your web browser at http:
-//p.p/, and then select "View & change the current configuration" from the
-selection list. You can also do this by editing the appropriate file with a
-text editor.
+For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer to the
+actions file chapter in the user manual. It includes a list of all actions and
+an actions file tutorial to get you started.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Please see the user-manual for a detailed explanation of these and other
-configuration files, and their various options and syntax.
+3.5. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
+Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited with a
+text editor. The probably easiest way is to access Privoxy's user interface
+with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/ (Shortcut: http://p.p/) and
+then select "View & change the current configuration" from the menu.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.5. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
+3.6. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
As of Privoxy v2.9.15, three actions files are being included, to be used for
-different purposes. These are default.action, standard.action, and user.action.
-Please see the User Manual for an explanation of each.
+different purposes: These are default.action, the "main" actions file which is
+actively maintained by the Privoxy developers, user.action, where users are
+encouraged to make their private customizations, and standard.action, which is
+for internal Privoxy use only. Please see the actions chapter in the user
+manual for a more detailed explanation.
+
+Earlier versions included three different versions of the default.action file.
+The new scheme allows for greater flexibility of local configuration, and for
+browser based selection of pre-defined "aggressiveness" levels.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+3.7. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/GMX account work?
+
+The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these
+services. It will, however, make all cookies temporary, so that your browser
+will forget your login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would
+like not to have to log in manually each time you access those websites, simply
+turn off all cookie handling for them in the user.action file. An example for
+yahoo might look like:
-Earlier versions included three different versions default.action files. The
-new scheme allows for greater flexibility of local configuration, and for
-browser based configuration.
+# Allow all cookies for Yahoo login:
+#
+{ -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only }
+.login.yahoo.com
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+3.8. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Advanced"
+defaults?
+
+Configuring Privoxy is not entirely trivial. To help you get started, we
+provide you with three different default action "packages" in the web based
+actions file editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status. The following
+table shows you, which of the most important features are enabled in each
+configuration:
+
+Table 1. Default Configurations
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Feature |Cautious |Intermadiate |Advanced |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Ad-blocking by URL |yes |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Ad-filtering by |yes |yes |yes |
+|size | | | |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|GIF de-animation |no |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Referer forging |no |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Cookie handling |none |session-only |kill |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Pop-up killing |no |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Fast redirects |no |no |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|HTML taming |yes |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|JavaScript taming |yes |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Web-bug killing |yes |yes |yes |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Fun text |no |no |yes |
+|replacements | | | |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Image tag |no |no |yes |
+|reordering | | | |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+|Ad-filtering by |no |no |yes |
+|link | | | |
++-------------------+------------------+-------------------+------------------+
+
+Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for known popular
+"problem" sites are included, but in general, the more aggressive your default
+settings are, the more exceptions you will have to make later. See the user
+manual for a more deatiled discussion.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.6. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
+3.9. 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 permissions.
+It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
+browsers, although the whole /etc/privoxy hierarchy belongs to the user
+"privoxy", with only 644 permissions.
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.
+If you run Privoxy for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in a LAN), you will
+probably want to turn the web-based editor and remote toggle features off by
+setting "enable-edit-actions 0" and "enable-remote-toggle 0" in the main
+configuration file.
+Note that in the default configuration, only local users (i.e. those on
+"localhost") can connect to Privoxy, so this is not (normally) a security
+problem.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.7. What is "default.filter"?
+3.10. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
-The "default.filter" file is where "filters" are defined, which are 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.
+The default.filter file is where filters are defined, which can be used to
+modify or remove, web page content on the fly. Filters apply to anything in the
+page source, including HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used
+to accomplish this. There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with
+common annoyances. The filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need
+to use the filter action in one of the actions files. Filtering is
+automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
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.
+provided default.filter with a text editor and define your own filters. This is
+potentially a very powerful feature, but requires some expertise in both
+regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
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 "View & change the current configuration" from your browser.
-
+but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
+default.filter file with the web-based actions file editor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.8. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
+3.11. 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:
+By default, Privoxy only responds to requests from 127.0.0.1 (localhost). To
+have it act as a server for a network, this needs to be changed in the main
+configuration file. Look for the listen-address option, which 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. Assuming your LAN address
+is 192.168.1.1 and you wish to run Privoxy on port 8118, this line schould look
+like:
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.
+If you run Privoxy on a LAN with untrusted users, we recommend that you
+double-check the access control and security options!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.9. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
+3.12. 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 of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF image (aka
-"blank"), or a custom URL of your choice. Note that to fit this category, the
-URL must match both the "+handle-as-image" and "+block" actions.
-
-If you want to see nothing, then change the "+set-image-blocker" action to
-"+image-blocker{blank}". This can be done from the "View & change the current
-configuration" selection at http://p.p/. Or by hand editing the appropriate
-actions file. This will only effect what is defined as "images" though. Also,
-some URLs that generate the bright red "Blocked" banner, can be moved to the
-"+set-image-blocker" section for the same reason, but there are some limits and
-risks to this (see below).
+The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the set-image-blocker
+action. You have the choice of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
+image (aka "blank"), or a redirect to a custom image of your choice. Note that
+this choice only has effect for images which are blocked as images, i.e. whose
+URLs match both a handle-as-image and block action.
+If you want to see nothing, then change the set-image-blocker action to "blank"
+. This can be done by editing the default.action file, or trough the web-based
+actions file editor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-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.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.11. I see large red banners on some pages that say "Blocked". Why and 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 explicitly as "images" (e.g. ads that are GIF image files).
-Depending on the URL itself, it is sometimes hard for Privoxy to really know
-whether there is indeed an ad image there or not. And there are limitations as
-to what Privoxy can do to "fool" the browser.
-
-For instance, if the ad is in a frame, then it is embedded in the separate HTML
-page used for the frame. In this case, you cannot just substitute an aribitrary
-image (like we would for a "blank" image), for an HTML page. The browser is
-expecting an HTML page, and that is what it must have for frames. Such
-situations can be a little trickier to deal with, and Privoxy may show the
-"Blocked" page, despite your best efforts.
-
-If you want these to be treated as if they were images, so that they can be
-made invisible, you can try moving the offending URL from the "+block" section
-to the "+imageblock" section of your actions file. Just be forewarned, if any
-URL is made "invisible", you may not have any inkling that something has been
-removed from that page, or why. If this approach does not work, then you are
-probably dealing with a frame (or "ilayer"), and the only thing that can go
-there is an HTML page of some sort.
-
-To deal with this situation, you could modify the "block" HTML template that is
-used by Privoxy to display this, and make it something more to your liking.
-Currently, there is no configuration option for this. You will have to modify,
-or create your own page, and use this to replace templates/blocked, which is
-what Privoxy uses to display the "Blocked" page.
-
-Another way to deal with this is find why and where Privoxy is blocking the
-frame, and diable this. Then let the "+set-image-blocker" action handle the ad
-that is embedded in the frame's HTML page.
+3.13. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
+Remember that telling which image is an ad and which isn't, is mostly
+guesswork. While we hope that the standard configuration is rather smart, it
+can and will make errors. The checkerboard image is visually decent, but it
+shows you that and where images were blocked, which can be very helpful in case
+some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was erraneously blocked. Some
+people might also enjoy seeing how many banners they don't have to see..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.12. I cannot see all of the "Blocked" page banner. Help.
-
-There is not enough available space to fit the entire Blocked page. Try right
-clicking on the visible portion, and select "Show Frame", or equivalent. This
-will usually allow you to see the entire Privoxy "Blocked" page, and from there
-you can see just what is being blocked, and why.
-
-As of Privoxy 2.9.14, the Blocked banner page is re-sizeable, and tries to
-adjust to the allotted space. There may be occassions where there just isn't
-enough room to display much of anything useful though.
-
+3.14. I see some images being replaced by a text instead of the checkerboard
+image. Why and how do I get rid of this?
+
+This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the page
+itself, but in separate HTML (sub)documents that are loaded into (i)frames or
+(i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images they
+get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image, which
+wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts only HTML
+when it has requested an HTML document.
+
+The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
+miniature two-liner if loaded into small frames, or full-blown with a large red
+"BLOCKED" banner if space allows.
+
+If you prefer the banners to be blocked by images, you must see to it that the
+HTML documents in which they are embedded are not blocked. Clicking the "See
+why" link offered in the substitute page will show you which rule blocked the
+page. After changing the rule and un-blocking the HTML documents, the browser
+will try to load the actual banner images and the usual image blocking will
+(hopefully!) kick in.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.13. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT?
+3.15. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT?
Yes, it can run as a system service using srvany.exe. The only catch is that
-this will effectively disable the Privoxy icon in the taskbar. You can have one
-or the other, but not both at this time :(
-
-There is a pending feature request for this functionality. See thread: http://
-sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118, for
-details, and a sample configuration.
+this will effectively disable the Privoxy icon (and its menu!) in the taskbar.
+You can have one or the other, but not both at this time :(
+There is a pending feature request for this functionality. See the discussion
+at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=
+11118, for details, and a sample configuration.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.14. 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.
+3.16. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
+This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of Privoxy with
+those of a caching proxy. See the forwarding chapter in the user manual which
+describes how to do this.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-3.15. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
+3.17. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
No, Privoxy currently does not have this ability, though it is planned for a
future release. Transparent proxies require special handling of the request
headers beyond what Privoxy is now capable of.
-Chaining Privoxy with another proxy that has this ability should work though.
-See the user manual, which describes this, and also http://
-www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/.
-
+Chaining Privoxy behind another proxy that has this ability should work though.
+See the forwarding chapter in the user manual. As a transparent proxy to be
+used for chaining we recommend Transproxy (http://www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Miscellaneous
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.
-
+"Filtering" content via the filter or deanimate-gifs actions may cause a
+perceived slowdown, since the entire document needs to be buffered before
+displaying. See below.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.2. I noticed considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
Junkbuster. What's wrong?
-The entire page content must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
-mechanism to work, and nothing 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".
+If you use any filter action, such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc,
+or the deanimate-gifs action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in
+order for the filtering mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser
+during this time.
-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.
+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". This effect is especially
+noticeable on slow dialup connections.
+Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-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.
+4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
-With recent versions of Privoxy (version 2.9.x and greater), you can get some
-information about Privoxy and change some settings by going to http://p.p/ or,
-equivalently, http://config.privoxy.org/ (Note that p.p is far easier to type
-but may not work in some configurations. With the name change to Privoxy, this
-is changed from the previous http://i.j.b/ and earlier 2.9.x versions).
+http://config.privoxy.org/ is the address of Privoxy's built-in user interface,
+and http://p.p/ is a shortcut for it.
-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.
+Since Privoxy sits between your web browser and the Internet, it can simply
+intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in "web
+server".
-If you are not running Privoxy, then http://p.p/ will fail, and http://
-config.privoxy.org/ will return a web page telling you you're not running
-Privoxy.
+This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
+URL http://config.privoxy.org/ takes you to a page saying "This is Privoxy..",
+everything is OK. If you get a page saying "Privoxy is not working" instead,
+then your browser didn't use Privoxy for the request, hence it could not be
+intercepted, and you have accessed the real web site at config.privoxy.org.
-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 2.9.15).
+With recent versions of Privoxy (version 2.9.x and later), the user interface
+features information on the run time status, the configuration, and even a
+built-in editor for the actions files.
+Note that the built-in URLs from earlier versions of Junkbuster / Privoxy,
+http://example.com/show-proxy-args and http://i.j.b/, are no longer supported.
+If you still use such an old version, you should really consider upgrading to
+2.9.16.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.4. Do you still maintain the blocklists?
-No, not by this name. The format of the blocklists has changed significantly in
-versions 2.9.x and later. This functionality is done by the "actions" file now.
-See next question ...
-
+No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the actions
+files, which are actively maintained instead. See next question ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.5. How can I submit new ads?
-Please see the Contact section.
-
-This process does not work with earlier versions of Privoxy or Junkbuster.
-
+Yes, absolutely! Please see the Contact section for how to do that. Please note
+that you (technically) need the latest Privoxy version for this to work.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 answers back to you.
+If you run both the browser and the proxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
+address with Privoxy or any other software. The server needs to know your IP
+address to send the answers back 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.
+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
(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.
+through Google. A particularly interesting project is the JAP service offered
+by the Technical University of Dresden (http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/
+index_en.html.
+There is, however, even in the single-machine case the possibility to make the
+server believe that your machine is in fact a shared proxy serving a whole big
+LAN, and we are looking into that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
Luke!
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-4.8. Might some things break because header information is being altered?
+4.8. Might some things break because header information or content 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.
+"User-Agent" in particular is often used in this way to identify the browser,
+and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now (at least not further than
+removing the OS information) is not recommended, since so many sites do look
+for it. 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
+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.
+server when no "Referer" or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
+can forge both headers without giving information away). There are many other
+ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
+
+Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree, HTML
+elements.
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.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
-
+proxies like Squid. See the forwarding chapter in the user manual for details.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. Privoxy can help
+protect your privacy, but not protect you from intrusion attempts. It is, of
+course, perfectly possible and recommended to use both.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-4.11. The Privoxy logo that replaces ads is very blocky and ugly looking. Can't
-a better font be used?
+4.11. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used to
+be. Why?
-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.
+It would be technically possible eliminate the banners in a way that frees
+their screen estate in many cases, by doing all banner blocking with filters,
+i.e. eliminating the whole image references from the HTML pages instead of
+letting them stay in, and blocking the resulting requests for the banners
+themselves.
-Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option entirely [as
-of v2.9.13].
+But this would consume considerable CPU resources, would likely destroy the
+layout of many web pages which rely on the banners consuming a certain amount
+of screen space, and would fail in other cases, where the screen space is
+reserved e.g. by tables anyway. Also, making the banners disappear without a
+visual trace complicates troubleshooting.
+So we won't support this in the default configuration, but you can of course
+define appropriate filters yourself.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-4.12. I have large empty spaces now where ads used to be. Why?
-
-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.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+4.12. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
-4.13. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
+Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
+and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably secure, there is little that
+Privoxy can do but hand the raw gibberish data though from one end to the other
+unprocessed.
-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.
+The only exception to this is blocking by host patterns, as the client needs to
+tell Privoxy the name of the remote server, so that Privoxy can establish the
+connection. If that name matches a host-only pattern, the connection will be
+blocked.
+As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
+seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often the
+banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless for
+efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of Privoxy's ad
+blocking.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-4.14. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
+4.13. 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,
+There are no known exploits that might affect 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". The server
-aspect of Privoxy is not itself directly exposed to the Internet in this
+Also, by default Privoxy only listens to requests from "localhost" only. The
+server aspect of Privoxy 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.
-
+configuration file and check all access control and security options. All LAN
+hosts can then use this as their proxy address in the browser proxy
+configuration, but Privoxy will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can
+be defined in addition, and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe
+than sorry.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-4.15. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+4.14. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+
+The easiest way is to access Privoxy with your browser by using the remote
+toggle URL: http://config.privoxy.org/toggle. See the Bookmarklets section of
+the User Manual for an easy way to access this feature.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-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.
+4.15. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
+No, this just means all filtering and actions are disabled. Privoxy is still
+acting as a proxy, but just not doing any of the things that Privoxy would
+normally be expected to do. It is still a "middle-man" in the interaction
+between your browser and web sites.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.16. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
-http://www.privoxy.org/, The Privoxy Home page.
+http://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.
-http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa, the Project Page for Privoxy on
-Sourceforge.
+http://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.
-http://p.p/, access Privoxy from your browser. Alternately, http://
-config.privoxy.org may work in some situations where the first does not.
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/, the Project Page for Privoxy on
+SourceForge.
-http://p.p/, and select "Privoxy - Submit Filter Feedback" to submit "misses"
-to the developers.
+http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface. Privoxy must be
+running for this to work. Shortcut: http://p.p/
-http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html
+http://www.privoxy.org/actions/, to submit "misses" to the developers.
-http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/
+http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explanation how cookies are
+used to track web users.
-http://privacy.net/analyze/
+http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html, the original Internet Junkbuster.
-http://www.squid-cache.org/
+http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/, Stefan Waldherr's version of Junkbuster,
+from which Privoxy was derived.
-
+http://privacy.net/analyze/, a useful site to check what information about you
+is leaked while you browse the web.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+http://www.squid-cache.org/, a very popular caching proxy, which is often used
+together with Privoxy.
+
+http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Troubleshooting
5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every web page?
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.
-
+new port number, or alternately change the listen-address option in Privoxy's
+main configuration file.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
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://config.privoxy.org/
-show-url-info and see if any actions match your new rule.
-
+show-url-info and see if it really matches your new rule.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. It's probably a good idea to
-flush the browser cache as well with Shift+Reload to flush caches.
-
-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 "View & change the current configuration". Here you should see various
-sections that have various Privoxy features disabled for specific sites. Most
-disabled "actions" will have a "-" (minus sign) in front of them. Some aliases
-are used just to disable other actions, e.g. "shop" and "fragile", and won't
-necessarily use a "+" or "-" sign. Add your problem page URL to one of these
-sections that looks like it is disabling the feature that is causing the
-problem. Rember to flush your browser's caches when making such changes! As a
-last resort, try "fragile" which disables most actions. Now re-try the page.
-There might be some trial and error involved. This is discussed in more detail
-in the user-manual appendix.
+First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by toggling off Privoxy
+through http://config.privoxy.org/toggle, and then shift-reloading the problem
+page (i.e. holding down the shift key while clicking reload. Alternatively,
+flush your browser's disk and memory caches).
+
+If still a problem, go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and paste the
+full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are being
+applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are responsible
+for that. Now, armed with this information, go to http://config.privoxy.org/
+show-status and select the appropriate actions files for editing.
+
+You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that you
+suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there, or make up
+a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended way is to
+disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only if the
+problem persists, disable more and more actions until you have identified the
+culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions on again. Remember
+to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish the
-same thing by editing the appropriate "actions" file.
+same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest way to
+deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your site to a { fragile
+} section in user.action, which is an alias that turns off most "dangerous"
+actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus
+lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,
+
+Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the user-manual appendix
+. There is also an actions tutorial.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+5.4. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
+gives?
+
+This is a quirk that effects the installation of Privoxy, in conjunction with
+Internet Explorer and Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows
+XP. The symptoms may appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or
+passwords.
+
+When setting up an NT based Windows system with Privoxy you may find that
+things do not seem to be doing what you expect. When you set your system up you
+will probably have set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up
+Networking (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You will
+probably have made this DUN connection available to other accounts that you may
+have set-up on your system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes
+accounts suitably configured for the kids.
+
+When setting up Privoxy in this environment you will have to alter the proxy
+set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you
+wish to use Privoxy. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up becomes user specific.
+In this instance you will see no difference if you change the DUN connection
+under the account used to set-up the connection. However when you do this from
+another user you will notice that the DUN connection changes to make available
+to "Me only". You will also find that you have to store the password under each
+different user!
+
+The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each
+set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for each
+user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations rather than
+common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after re-booting
+your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for the password.
+Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
+
+[Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+5.5. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy seems to be blocking me.
-We value your feedback. However, to provide you with the best support, please
-note the following sections.
+Privoxy cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser
+to use Privoxy as an FTP proxy. The same is true for any protocol other than
+HTTP or HTTPS.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
+We value your feedback. In fact, we rely on it to improve Privoxy and its
+configuration. However, please note the following hints, so we can provide you
+with the best support:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1. Get Support
-To get support, use the Sourceforge Support Forum:
-
- http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118
+For casual users, our support forum at SourceForge is probably best suited:
+http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118
+All users are of course welcome to discuss their issues on the users mailing
+list, where the developers also hang around.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.2. Report bugs
+6.2. Report Bugs
-To submit bugs, use the Sourceforge Bug Forum:
+Please report all bugs only through our bug tracker: http://sourceforge.net/
+tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
- http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
+Before doing so, please make sure that the bug has not already been submitted
+and observe the additional hints at the top of the submit form.
-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. Please be
-sure to include the Privoxy version, platform, browser, any pertinent log data,
-any other relevant details (please be specific) and, if possible, some way to
-reproduce the bug.
+Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug
+first. If unsure, try toggling off Privoxy, and see if the problem persists.
+The appendix of the user manual also has helpful information on action
+debugging. If you are using your own custom configuration, please try the stock
+configs to see if the problem is configuration related.
+If not using the latest version, chances are that the bug has been found and
+fixed in the meantime. We would appreciate if you could take the time to
+upgrade to the latest version (or even the latest CVS snapshot) and verify your
+bug, but this is not required for reporting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.3. Request new features
-
-To submit ideas on new features, use the Sourceforge feature request forum:
-
- http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118&func=browse.
+6.3. Request New Features
+You are welcome to submit ideas on new features or other proposals for
+improvement through our feature request tracker at http://sourceforge.net/
+tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-6.4. Report ads or other filter problems
+6.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
-You can also send feedback on websites that Privoxy has problems with. Please
-bookmark the following link: "Privoxy - Submit Filter Feedback". Once you surf
-to a page with problems, use the bookmark to send us feedback. We will look
-into the issue as soon as possible.
+Please send feedback on ads that slipped through, innocent images that were
+blocked, and any other problems relating to the default.action file through our
+actions feedback mechanism located at http://www.privoxy.org/actions/. On this
+page, you will also find a bookmark which will take you back there from any
+troubled site and even pre-fill the form!
New, improved default.action files will occasionally be made available based on
-your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list.
-
+your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list and
+available from our the files section of our project page.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.5. Other
-For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists:
-
- http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=11118.
-
-Anyone interested in actively participating in development and related
-discussions can also join the appropriate mailing list. Archives are available,
-too. See the page on Sourceforge.
-
+For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists. Technically
+interested users and people who wish to contribute to the project are also
+welcome on the developers list! You can find an overview of all Privoxy-related
+mailing lists, including list archives, at: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?
+group_id=11118.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
Portions of this document are "borrowed" from the original Junkbuster (tm) FAQ,
and modified as appropriate for Privoxy.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1. License
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the
- Free Software
- Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
- Boston, MA 02111-1307
- USA
-
+ Free Software
+ Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
+ Boston, MA 02111-1307
+ USA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2. History
-Privoxy is evolved, and derived from, the Internet Junkbuster, with many
-improvments and enhancements over the original.
-
-Junkbuster was originally written by Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters
-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 ;-).
-
+In the beginning, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
+Junkbusters Corporation. It saved many users a lot of pain in the early days of
+web advertising and user tracking.
+
+But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
+forcing users to consume ads, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for
+spying on them, kept evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not.
+Version 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release
+available from Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under
+the GNU GPL, which allowed further development by others.
+
+So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
+which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
+replace banners with a transparent image, and had a first version of pop-up
+killing, but it was still very closely based on the original, with all its
+limitations, such as the lack of HTTP/1.1 support, flexible per-site
+configuration, or content modification. The last release from this effort was
+version 2.0.2-10, published in 2000.
+
+Then, some developers picked up the thread, and started turning the software
+inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many new features
+along the way.
+
+The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable release, 3.0, is due in June
+2002.
-Privoxy User Manual
+Privoxy 2.9.16 User Manual
Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Privoxy Developers
-$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes Exp $
+$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes Exp $
-The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
+
+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
Privoxy is based on Internet Junkbuster (tm).
-You can find the latest version of the user manual at http://www.privoxy.org/
+You can find the latest version of the User Manual at http://www.privoxy.org/
user-manual/. Please see the Contact section on how to contact the developers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
-
1.1. Features
-2. Installation
+2. Installation
2.1. Binary Packages
-
- 2.1.1. Red Hat, SuSE RPMs and Conectiva
+ 2.1.1. Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs
2.1.2. Debian
2.1.3. Windows
2.1.4. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX
2.1.5. OS/2
- 2.1.6. Max OSX
+ 2.1.6. Mac OSX
2.1.7. AmigaOS
+
2.2. Building from Source
+ 2.3. Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date
+
3. Note to Upgraders
4. Quickstart to Using Privoxy
-
4.1. Quickstart to Ad Blocking
+
5. Starting Privoxy
+ 5.1. Red Hat and Conectiva
+ 5.2. Debian
+ 5.3. SuSE
+ 5.4. Windows
+ 5.5. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others
+ 5.6. OS/2
+ 5.7. Mac OSX
+ 5.8. AmigaOS
+ 5.9. Command Line Options
- 5.1. RedHat, Conectiva and Debian
- 5.2. SuSE
- 5.3. Windows
- 5.4. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others
- 5.5. OS/2
- 5.6. MAX OSX
- 5.7. AmigaOS
- 5.8. Command Line Options
6. Privoxy Configuration
-
6.1. Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
6.2. Configuration Files Overview
-7. The Main Configuration File
+7. The Main Configuration File
7.1. Configuration and Log File Locations
-
7.1.1. confdir
7.1.2. logdir
7.1.3. actionsfile
7.1.6. jarfile
7.1.7. trustfile
- 7.2. Local Set-up Documentation
+ 7.2. Local Set-up Documentation
7.2.1. user-manual
7.2.2. trust-info-url
7.2.3. admin-address
7.2.4. proxy-info-url
- 7.3. Debugging
+ 7.3. Debugging
7.3.1. debug
7.3.2. single-threaded
- 7.4. Access Control and Security
+ 7.4. Access Control and Security
7.4.1. listen-address
7.4.2. toggle
7.4.3. enable-remote-toggle
7.4.5. ACLs: permit-access and deny-access
7.4.6. buffer-limit
- 7.5. Forwarding
+ 7.5. Forwarding
7.5.1. forward
7.5.2. forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a
7.5.3. Advanced Forwarding Examples
+
7.6. Windows GUI Options
-8. Actions Files
+8. Actions Files
8.1. Finding the Right Mix
8.2. How to Edit
8.3. How Actions are Applied to URLs
8.4. Patterns
-
+ 22
8.4.1. The Domain Pattern
8.4.2. The Path Pattern
- 8.5. Actions
+ 8.5. Actions
8.5.1. add-header
8.5.2. block
8.5.3. crunch-incoming-cookies
8.5.20. set-image-blocker
8.5.21. Summary
+
8.6. Aliases
8.7. Actions Files Tutorial
-
8.7.1. default.action
8.7.2. user.action
-9. The Filter File
+
+
+9. The Filter File
9.1. Filter File Tutorial
+
10. Templates
11. Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
-
11.1. Get Support
11.2. Report Bugs
11.3. Request New Features
11.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
11.5. Other
-12. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
+12. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
12.1. License
12.2. History
12.3. Authors
+
13. See Also
14. Appendix
-
14.1. Regular Expressions
14.2. Privoxy's Internal Pages
-
14.2.1. Bookmarklets
+
14.3. Chain of Events
14.4. Anatomy of an Action
+
+
1. Introduction
This documentation is included with the current beta version of Privoxy,
-v.2.9.15, and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference
+v.2.9.16, 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
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. Features
blocking and cookie management, Privoxy provides new features, some of them
currently under development:
- * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
+ * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
config.privoxy.org/ (shortcut: http://p.p/). Browser-based tracing of rule
and filter effects. Remote toggling.
- * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
+ * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
"web-bugs", JavaScript and HTML annoyances, pop-up windows, etc.)
- * Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
+ * Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
settings to reside in separate files, so that installing updated actions
files won't overwrite individual user settings.
- * HTTP/1.1 compliant (but not all optional 1.1 features are supported).
+ * HTTP/1.1 compliant (but not all optional 1.1 features are supported).
- * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
+ * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
and generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
previous versions.
- * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
- * GIF de-animation.
+ * GIF de-animation.
- * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
- * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+ * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
- * User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
+ * User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
"blocked" page).
- * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+ * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
- * Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
+ * Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
- * Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
+ * Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
configuration more powerful and versatile over-all.
- * Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
+ * Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
holes fixed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Installation
Privoxy is available both in convenient pre-compiled packages for a wide range
of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case be
sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to you. See the note to
upgraders section below.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1. Binary Packages
How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-2.1.1. Red Hat, SuSE RPMs and Conectiva
+2.1.1. Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs
-RPMs can be installed with rpm -Uvh privoxy-2.9.15-1.rpm, and will use /etc/
+RPMs can be installed with rpm -Uvh privoxy-2.9.16-1.rpm, and will use /etc/
privoxy for the location of configuration files.
Note that on Red Hat, Privoxy will not be automatically started on system boot.
that SuSE will automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM: rpm
---rebuild privoxy-2.9.15-1.src.rpm;. This will use your locally installed
+--rebuild privoxy-2.9.16-1.src.rpm. This will use your locally installed
libraries and RPM version.
Also note that if you have a Junkbuster RPM installed on your system, you need
to remove it first, because the packages conflict. Otherwise, RPM will try to
remove Junkbuster automatically, before installing Privoxy.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.2. Debian
-FIXME.
-
+DEBs can be installed with dpkg -i privoxy_2.9.16-1.deb, and will use /etc/
+privoxy for the location of configuration files.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.3. Windows
Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through the installation
process. You will find the configuration files in the same directory as you
installed Privoxy in. We do not use the registry of Windows.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.4. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX
Create a new directory, cd to it, then unzip and untar the archive. For the
-most part, you'll have to figure out where things go. FIXME.
-
+most part, you'll have to figure out where things go.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.5. OS/2
First, make sure that no previous installations of Junkbuster and / or Privoxy
-are left on your system. You can do this by
+are left on your system. Check that no Junkbuster or Privoxy objects are in
+your startup folder.
Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will guide
you through the installation process. A shadow of the Privoxy executable will
The directory you choose to install Privoxy into will contain all of the
configuration files.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-2.1.6. Max OSX
+2.1.6. Mac OSX
Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file in the
-finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then, double-click on
-the package installer icon and follow the installation process. Privoxy will be
-installed in the subdirectory /Applications/Privoxy.app. Privoxy will set
-itself up to start automatically on system bring-up via /System/Library/
-StartupItems/Privoxy.
-
+finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). The Privoxy.pkg package
+should appear after unzipping. Then, double-click on that Privoxy.pkg package
+installer icon and follow the installation process. Privoxy will be installed
+in the folder /Library/Privoxy. It will run automatically whenever you start
+up. To prevent it from running automatically, remove or rename the folder /
+Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
+
+To run Privoxy by hand, double-click on RunPrivoxy.command. To run Privoxy from
+Terminal, execute /Library/Privoxy/RunPrivoxy.command.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.7. AmigaOS
Copy and then unpack the lha archive to a suitable location. All necessary
files will be installed into Privoxy directory, including all configuration and
log files. To uninstall, just remove this directory.
-
-Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your startnet script (AmiTCP), in s:
-user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your startup script (Genesis),
-or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx). Privoxy will automatically quit when
-you quit your TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack
-may display that Privoxy is still running).
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2. Building from Source
When building from a source tarball (either release version or nightly CVS
tarball), first unpack the source:
- tar xzvf privoxy-2.9.15-beta-src* [.tgz or .tar.gz]
- cd privoxy-2.9.15-beta
+ tar xzvf privoxy-2.9.16-beta-src* [.tgz or .tar.gz]
+ cd privoxy-2.9.16-beta
For retrieving the current CVS sources, you'll need CVS installed. Note that
sources from CVS are development quality, and may not be stable, or well
For more detailed instructions on how to build Redhat and SuSE RPMs, Windows
self-extracting installers, building on platforms with special requirements
etc, please consult the developer manual.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+2.3. Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date
+As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated
+versions of both the software and the main actions file (default.action)
+available for download.
+
+If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
+Privoxy or the actions file, subscribe to our announce mailing list,
+ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
+
+Both can be downloaded from the files section on SourceForge.
+
+In order not to loose your personal changes and adjustments when updating to
+the latest default.action file we strongly recommend that you use user.action
+for your customization of Privoxy. See the Chapter on actions files for
+details.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Note to Upgraders
A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
- * The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
+ * The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
service (NAS).
- * Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any important
+ * Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any important
configuration files!
- * Privoxy is controllable with a web browser at the special URL: http://
+ * Privoxy is controllable with a web browser at the special URL: http://
config.privoxy.org/ (Shortcut: http://p.p/). Many aspects of configuration
can be done here, including temporarily disabling Privoxy.
- * The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
+ * The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
blocking, and many other aspects of Privoxy configuration are the actions
files. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new actions
concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules should
go into user.action.
- * Some installers may not automatically start Privoxy after installation.
+ * Some installers may not automatically start Privoxy after installation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Quickstart to Using Privoxy
- * If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
+ * If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
files. See the Note to Upgraders Section.
- * Install Privoxy. See the Installation Section below for platform specific
+ * Install Privoxy. See the Installation Section below for platform specific
information.
- * Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy service to more than
+ * Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy service to more than
just their local machine should check the main config file, especially the
security-relevant options. These are off by default.
- * Start Privoxy, if the installation program has not done this already (may
+ * Start Privoxy, if the installation program has not done this already (may
vary according to platform). See the section Starting Privoxy.
- * Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and HTTPS proxy by setting the
+ * Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and HTTPS proxy by setting the
proxy configuration for address of 127.0.0.1 and port 8118. (Junkbuster and
- earlier versions of Privoxy used port 8000.) See the section Starting
+ earlier versions of Privoxy used port 8000.) See the section Starting
Privoxy below for more details on this.
- * Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad
+ * Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad
images.
- * A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for most.
+ * A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for most.
There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little to no
initial configuration is required in most cases.
See the Configuration section for more configuration options, and how to
customize your installation.
- * If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
+ * If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune Privoxy's behaviour, take
a look at the actions files. As a quick start, you might find the richly
commented examples helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files
through the web-based user interface. The Appendix "Anatomy of an Action"
has hints how to debug actions that "misbehave".
- * Please see the section Contacting the Developers on how to report bugs or
+ * Please see the section Contacting the Developers on how to report bugs or
problems with websites or to get help.
- * Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
+ * Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.1. Quickstart to Ad Blocking
Ad blocking is but one of Privoxy's array of features. Many of these features
This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so you can get up to
speed quickly without having to read the more extensive information provided
-below, though this is highly recommeneded.
+below, though this is highly recommended.
First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the more
aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block things that were
Actions are specified in Privoxy's configuration, followed by one or more URLs
to which the action should apply. URLs can actually be URL type patterns that
-use wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs.
-
-When you connect to a website, the full path of the URL will either match one
-of the "actions" as defined in Privoxy's configuration, or not. If so, then
-Privoxy will perform the action accordingly. If not, then nothing special
-happens. Futhermore, web pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your
-web browser will display as it parses the original page's HTML content. An ad
-image for instance, is just a URL embedded in the page somewhere. The image
-itself may be on the same server, or a server somewhere else on the Internet.
-Complex web pages will have many such embedded URLs.
+use wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
+actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
+
+When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more of
+the sections as defined in Privoxy's configuration, or not. If so, then Privoxy
+will perform the respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens.
+Furthermore, web pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web
+browser will use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
+original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL embedded
+in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server, or a server
+somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many such embedded
+URLs.
The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: block, handle-as-image,
and set-image-blocker:
- * block - this action stops any contact between your browser and any URL
+ * block - this action stops any contact between your browser and any URL
patterns that match this action's configuration. It can be used for
blocking ads, but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By
- itself, it simply stops any communication with the remote server. If this
- is the only action that matches for this particular URL, then Privoxy will
- display its own BLOCKED page to let you now what has happened.
-
- * handle-as-image - forces Privoxy to treat this URL as if it were an image.
- Privoxy knows about common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many
- situations where this does not apply. So we'll force it. This is
- particularly important for ad blocking, since once we can treat it as an
- image, we can make more intelligent decisisions on how to handle it. There
- are some limitations to this though. For instance, you can't just force an
- image substituion for an entire HTML page in most situations.
-
- * set-image-blocker - tells Privoxy what to display in place of an ad image
+ itself, it simply stops any communication with the remote server and sends
+ Privoxy's own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has
+ happened.
+
+ * handle-as-image - tells Privoxy to treat this URL as an image. Privoxy's
+ default configuration already does this for all common image types (e.g.
+ GIF), but there are many situations where this is not so easy to determine.
+ So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly important for ad
+ blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of some kind, can we
+ replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the Privoxy BLOCKED
+ page (which would only result in a "broken image" icon). There are some
+ limitations to this though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an
+ image substitution for an entire HTML page in most situations.
+
+ * set-image-blocker - tells Privoxy what to display in place of an ad image
that has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
- block action somewhere in the configuration. And, it must also either be of
- a known image type, or match an handle-as-image action.
+ block action somewhere in the configuration, and, it must also match an
+ handle-as-image action.
The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
- pattern - a checkboard pattern, so that an ad replacement is obvious.
+ pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad replacement is obvious.
This is the default.
- blank - A very small empty GIF image is displayed. This is the so-called
+ blank - A very small empty GIF image is displayed. This is the so-called
"invisible" configuration option.
- http://<URL> - A redirect to any URL of the user's choosing (advanced
- usage).
+ http://<URL> - A redirect to any image anywhere of the user's choosing
+ (advanced usage).
+
+
The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
the special Privoxy editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status (shortcut:
http://p.p/show-status). This is an internal page, and does not require
A quick and simple step by step example:
- * Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select "Copy Link Location"
+ * Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select "Copy Link Location"
from the pop-up menu.
- * Set your browser to http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
+ * Set your browser to http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
- * Find user.action in the top section, and click on "Edit":
+ * Find user.action in the top section, and click on "Edit":
Figure 1. Actions Files in Use
- Screenshot of Files in Use
+ [ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]
- * You should have an Actions section labeled +block. If not, click the "Edit"
- button just under the word "Actions". This will bring up a list of all
- actions. Find block near the top, and click in the "Enabled" column, then
- "Submit" just below the list.
+ * You should have a section with only block listed under "Actions:". If not,
+ click a "Insert new section below" button, and in the new section that just
+ appeared, click the Edit button right under the word "Actions:". This will
+ bring up a list of all actions. Find block near the top, and click in the
+ "Enabled" column, then "Submit" just below the list.
- * Now, in the +block actions section, click the "Add" button, and paste the
+ * Now, in the block actions section, click the "Add" button, and paste the
URL the browser got from "Copy Link Location". Remove the http:// at the
- beginning of the URL. Then, click "Submit".
+ beginning of the URL. Then, click "Submit" (or "OK" if in a pop-up window).
- * Now go back to the original page, and press SHIFT-Reload (or flush all
+ * Now go back to the original page, and press SHIFT-Reload (or flush all
browser caches). The image should be gone now.
+
This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
site. For a more extensive explanation of "patterns", and the entire actions
concept, see the Actions section.
For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want to
-now go to the Actions Files Tutorial.
-
+now go to the Actions Files Tutorial. The ideas explained therein also apply to
+the web-based editor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Starting Privoxy
(or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions used port
8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
-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: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy
-support too.
+Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and HTTPS traffic. It will not
+work with FTP or other protocols.
+
+Figure 2. Proxy Configuration (Mozilla)
+
+[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]
+
+With Netscape (and Mozilla), this can be set under:
+
+ Edit
+ |_
+ Preferences
+ |_
+ Advanced
+ |_
+ Proxies
+ |_
+ HTTP Proxy
+
+For Internet Explorer:
+
+ Tools
+ |_
+ Internet Properties
+ |_
+ Connections
+ |_
+ LAN Settings
+
+Then, check "Use Proxy" and fill in the appropriate info (Address: 127.0.0.1,
+Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS proxy support too.
After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You are
used on the command line. 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.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.1. RedHat, Conectiva and Debian
+5.1. Red Hat and Conectiva
-We use a script. Note that RedHat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
+We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
default. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration
-file. FIXME: Debian??
+file.
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+5.2. Debian
+
+We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per default. It
+will use the file /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration file.
+
+ # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.2. SuSE
+5.3. SuSE
We use a script. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config as its main
configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting your PC.
# rcprivoxy start
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.3. Windows
+5.4. Windows
Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
specified on the command line, Privoxy will look for a file named config.txt.
Note that Windows will automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.4. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others
+5.5. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others
Example Unix startup command:
# /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.5. OS/2
-
-FIXME.
+5.6. OS/2
+During installation, Privoxy is configured to start automatically when the
+system restarts. You can start it manually by double-clicking on the Privoxy
+icon in the Privoxy folder.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.6. MAX OSX
+5.7. Mac OSX
-FIXME.
+During installation, Privoxy is configured to start automatically when the
+system restarts. To run Privoxy by hand, double-click on the RunPrivoxy.command
+icon in the /Library/Privoxy folder. Or, type this command in the Terminal:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ /Library/Privoxy/RunPrivoxy.command
+
-5.7. AmigaOS
+If you are not logged in as an administrator, you will be asked for the
+administrator password when starting Privoxy by hand.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-FIXME.
+5.8. AmigaOS
+Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your startnet script (AmiTCP), in s:
+user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your startup script (Genesis),
+or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx). Privoxy will automatically quit when
+you quit your TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack
+may display that Privoxy is still running).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5.8. Command Line Options
+5.9. Command Line Options
Privoxy may be invoked with the following command-line options:
- * --version
+ * --version
Print version info and exit. Unix only.
- * --help
+ * --help
Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
- * --no-daemon
+ * --no-daemon
Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group leader, and
don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
- * --pidfile FILE
+ * --pidfile FILE
On startup, write the process ID to FILE. Delete the FILE on exit. Failure
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]
+ * --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
+ * configfile
If no configfile is included on the command line, Privoxy will look for a
file named "config" in the current directory (except on Win32 where it will
look for "config.txt" instead). Specify full path to avoid confusion. If no
config file is found, Privoxy will fail to start.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Privoxy Configuration
All Privoxy configuration is stored 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.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1. Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser
Privoxy's user interface can be reached through the special URL http://
config.privoxy.org/ (shortcut: http://p.p/), which is a built-in page and works
without Internet access. You will see the following section:
-
- Privoxy Menu
- ? View & change the current configuration
- ? View the source code version numbers
- ? View the request headers.
- ? Look up which actions apply to a URL and why
- ? Toggle Privoxy on or off
-
+ Privoxy Menu
+ ?? View & change the current configuration
+ ?? View the source code version numbers
+ ?? View the request headers.
+ ?? Look up which actions apply to a URL and why
+ ?? Toggle Privoxy on or off
This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
actions files, which is where the ad, banner, cookie, and URL blocking magic is
proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e. Privoxy acts like a
normal forwarding proxy. There is even a toggle Bookmarklet offered, so that
you can toggle Privoxy with one click from your browser.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2. Configuration Files Overview
settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the principle
configuration files are:
- * The main configuration file is named config on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and
+ * The main configuration file is named config on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and
AmigaOS and config.txt on Windows. This is a required file.
- * default.action (the main actions file) is used to define which "actions"
+ * default.action (the main actions file) is used to define which "actions"
relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie
handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many exceptions
- (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
+ (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
Privoxy to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on as many
websites as possible.
config.privoxy.org/show-status (Shortcut: http://p.p/show-status) for the
various actions files.
- * default.filter (the filter file) can be used to re-write the raw page
+ * default.filter (the 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. The filtering jobs are only
pre-defined here; whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
+
All files use the "#" character to denote a comment (the rest of the line will
be ignored) and understand line continuation through placing a backslash ("\")
as the very last character in a line. If the # is preceded by a backslash, it
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.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. The Main Configuration File
followed by a list of values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces
or tabs). For example:
- confdir /etc/privoxy
+ confdir /etc/privoxy
Assigns the value /etc/privoxy to the option confdir and thus indicates that
the configuration directory is named "/etc/privoxy/".
The main config file controls all aspects of Privoxy's operation that are not
location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter where you may be
surfing).
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1. Configuration and Log File Locations
Privoxy can (and normally does) use a number of other files for additional
-configuration, help and logging. This section of the configuration file tells
+configuration, help and logging. This section of the configuration file tells
Privoxy where to find those other files.
The user running Privoxy, must have read permission for all configuration
files, and write permission to any files that would be modified, such as log
-files.
-
+files and actions files.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.1. confdir
Specifies:
-
The directory where the other configuration files are located
Type of value:
-
Path name
Default value:
-
/etc/privoxy (Unix) or Privoxy installation dir (Windows)
Effect if unset:
-
Mandatory
Notes:
-
No trailing "/", please
When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
where the HTML templates for CGI output reside (e.g. Privoxy's 404 error
page).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.2. logdir
Specifies:
-
The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where logfile and jarfile
are located)
Type of value:
-
Path name
Default value:
-
/var/log/privoxy (Unix) or Privoxy installation dir (Windows)
Effect if unset:
-
Mandatory
Notes:
-
No trailing "/", please
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.3. actionsfile
Specifies:
-
The actions file(s) to use
Type of value:
-
File name, relative to confdir, without the .action suffix
Default values:
+ standard # Internal purposes, no editing recommended
+ default # Main actions file
+ user # User customizations
- standard # Internal purposes, no editing recommended
-
- default # Main actions file
-
- user # User customizations
Effect if unset:
-
No actions are taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
Notes:
-
Multiple actionsfile lines are permitted, and are in fact recommended!
The default values include standard.action, which is used for internal
for ad blocking, cookie management, privacy considerations, etc. There is
no point in using Privoxy without at least one actions file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.4. filterfile
Specifies:
-
The filter file to use
Type of value:
-
File name, relative to confdir
Default value:
-
default.filter (Unix) or default.filter.txt (Windows)
Effect if unset:
-
No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all +filter{name} actions in
the actions files are turned neutral.
Notes:
-
The 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
+ re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some fun replacing
"Microsoft" with "MicroSuck" wherever it appears on a Web page.
The +filter{name} actions rely on the relevant filter (name) to be defined
handy filters for common problems is included in the distribution. See the
section on the filter action for a list.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.5. logfile
Specifies:
-
The log file to use
Type of value:
-
File name, relative to logdir
Default value:
-
logfile (Unix) or privoxy.log (Windows)
Effect if unset:
-
- No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (stderr).
+ No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (STDERR).
Notes:
-
The windows version will additionally log to the console.
The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
Any log files must be writable by whatever user Privoxy is being run as
(default on UNIX, user id is "privoxy").
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.6. jarfile
Specifies:
-
The file to store intercepted cookies in
Type of value:
-
File name, relative to logdir
Default value:
-
jarfile (Unix) or privoxy.jar (Windows)
Effect if unset:
-
Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
Notes:
-
The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1.7. trustfile
Specifies:
-
The trust file to use
Type of value:
-
File name, relative to confdir
Default value:
-
Unset (commented out). When activated: trust (Unix) or trust.txt (Windows)
Effect if unset:
-
The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
Notes:
-
The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and
should be used with care. It is NOT recommended for the casual user.
If you use + operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over
time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2. Local Set-up Documentation
If you intend to operate Privoxy for more users than just yourself, it might be
a good idea to let them know how to reach you, what you block and why you do
that, your policies, etc.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2.1. user-manual
Specifies:
-
Location of the Privoxy User Manual.
Type of value:
-
A fully qualified URI
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
http://www.privoxy.org/version/user-manual/ will be used, where version is
the Privoxy version.
Notes:
-
The User Manual URI is used for help links from some of the internal CGI
pages. The manual itself is normally packaged with the binary
distributions, so you probably want to set this to a locally installed
Unix, in local filesystem:
- user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-2.9.15/user-manual/
+ user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-2.9.16/user-manual/
Any platform, on local webserver (called "local-webserver"):
- user-manual http://local-webserver/privoxy-user-manual/
+ user-manual http://local-webserver/privoxy-user-manual/
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Warning |
- |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|If set, this option should be the first option in the config |
|file, because it is used while the config file is being read. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
+
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
7.2.2. trust-info-url
Specifies:
-
A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an
untrusted page is denied.
Type of value:
-
URL
Default value:
-
Two example URL are provided
Effect if unset:
-
No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
Notes:
-
The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism
has been activated. (See trustfile above.)
locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first
place!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2.3. admin-address
Specifies:
-
An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
Type of value:
-
Email address
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
Notes:
-
If both admin-address and proxy-info-url are unset, the whole "Local
Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will not be shown.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.2.4. proxy-info-url
Specifies:
-
A URL to documentation about the local Privoxy setup, configuration or
policies.
Type of value:
-
URL
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user
interface.
Notes:
-
If both admin-address and proxy-info-url are unset, the whole "Local
Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will not be shown.
This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.3. Debugging
These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem. Note that you might
also want to invoke Privoxy with the --no-daemon command line option when
debugging.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.3.1. debug
Specifies:
-
Key values that determine what information gets logged to the logfile.
Type of value:
-
Integer values
Default value:
-
12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)
Effect if unset:
-
Nothing gets logged.
Notes:
-
The available debug levels are:
debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set "debug 512" ONLY
and not enable anything else.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.3.2. single-threaded
Specifies:
-
Whether to run only one server thread
Type of value:
-
None
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability
to serve multiple requests simultaneously.
Notes:
-
This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never need to
use it. It will drastically reduce performance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4. Access Control and Security
-This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects of
+This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects of
Privoxy's configuration.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4.1. listen-address
Specifies:
-
The IP address and TCP port on which Privoxy will listen for client
requests.
Type of value:
-
[IP-Address]:Port
Default value:
-
127.0.0.1:8118
Effect if unset:
-
Bind to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended
for home users who run Privoxy on the same machine as their browser.
Notes:
-
You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
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 "ACLs" below),
- or a firewall.
+ that case, consider using access control lists (ACL's, see below), and/or a
+ firewall.
-Example:
+ If you open Privoxy to untrusted users, you will also want to turn off the
+ enable-edit-actions and enable-remote-toggle options!
+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
listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4.2. toggle
Specifies:
-
Initial state of "toggle" status
Type of value:
-
1 or 0
Default value:
-
1
Effect if unset:
-
Act as if toggled on
Notes:
-
If set to 0, Privoxy will start in "toggled off" mode, i.e. behave like a
normal, content-neutral proxy where all ad blocking, filtering, etc are
disabled. See enable-remote-toggle below. This is not really useful
The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray if
this option is present.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4.3. enable-remote-toggle
Specifies:
-
Whether or not the web-based toggle feature may be used
Type of value:
-
0 or 1
Default value:
-
1
Effect if unset:
-
The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
Notes:
-
When toggled off, Privoxy acts like a normal, content-neutral proxy, i.e.
it acts as if none of the actions applied to any URL.
Note that you must have compiled Privoxy with support for this feature,
otherwise this option has no effect.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4.4. enable-edit-actions
Specifies:
-
Whether or not the web-based actions file editor may be used
Type of value:
-
0 or 1
Default value:
-
1
Effect if unset:
-
The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
Notes:
-
For the time being, access to the editor can not be controlled separately
by "ACLs" or HTTP authentication, so that everybody who can access Privoxy
(see "ACLs" and listen-address above) can modify its configuration for all
Note that you must have compiled Privoxy with support for this feature,
otherwise this option has no effect.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4.5. ACLs: permit-access and deny-access
Specifies:
-
Who can access what.
Type of value:
-
src_addr[/src_masklen] [dst_addr[/dst_masklen]]
Where src_addr and dst_addr are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or
optional.
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
Don't restrict access further than implied by listen-address
Notes:
-
Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
administrators, and are not usually needed by individual users. For a
typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that Privoxy only
sites.
Examples:
-
Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and listen-address are
set: "localhost" is OK. The absence of a dst_addr implies that all
destination addresses are OK:
permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.4.6. buffer-limit
Specifies:
-
Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
Type of value:
-
Size in Kbytes
Default value:
-
4096
Effect if unset:
-
Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
Notes:
-
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
When a document buffer size reaches the buffer-limit, it is flushed to the
client unfiltered and no further attempt to filter the rest of the document
is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads running, which might
- require up to buffer-limit Kbytes each, unless you have enabled
+ require up to buffer-limit Kbytes each, unless you have enabled
"single-threaded" above.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.5. Forwarding
This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of multiple
Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. Privoxy supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS
4A protocols.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.5.1. forward
Specifies:
-
To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
Type of value:
-
target_domain[:port] http_parent[/port]
Where target_domain is a domain name pattern (see the chapter on domain
parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
Notes:
-
If http_parent is ".", then requests are not forwarded to another HTTP
proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
wins.
Examples:
-
Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443
(which it doesn't handle):
forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
forward .example-isp.net .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.5.2. forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a
Specifies:
-
Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific
requests should be routed.
Type of value:
-
target_domain[:port] socks_proxy[/port] http_parent[/port]
Where target_domain is a domain name pattern (see the chapter on domain
TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
Default value:
-
Unset
Effect if unset:
-
Don't use SOCKS proxies.
Notes:
-
Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match
wins.
a SOCKS proxy.
Examples:
-
From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all "internal"
domains, but everything outbound goes through their ISP's proxy by way of
example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to the Internet.
forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.5.3. Advanced Forwarding Examples
If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content only to
You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to squid's address
and port. Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult http_port in
squid.conf.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.6. 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
+
+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
-
+ activity-animation 1
+
+
If "log-messages" is set to 1, Privoxy will log messages to the console window:
- log-messages 1
-
+ log-messages 1
+
+
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
Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and eat
up all your memory!
- log-buffer-size 1
-
+ log-buffer-size 1
+
+
log-max-lines is the maximum number of lines held in the log buffer. See above.
- log-max-lines 200
-
+ log-max-lines 200
+
+
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-highlight-messages 1
+
+
The font used in the console window:
- log-font-name Comic Sans MS
-
+ log-font-name Comic Sans MS
+
+
Font size used in the console window:
- log-font-size 8
-
+ log-font-size 8
+
+
"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
-
+ 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
-
+ 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
-
-
+ #hide-console
+
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Actions Files
thereof). There are three such files included with Privoxy (as of version
2.9.15), with differing purposes:
- * default.action - is the primary action file that sets the initial values
+ * default.action - is the primary action file that sets the initial values
for all actions. It is intended to provide a base level of functionality
for Privoxy's array of features. So it is a set of broad rules that should
work reasonably well for users everywhere. This is the file that the
developers are keeping updated, and making available to users.
- * user.action - is intended to be for local site preferences and exceptions.
+ * user.action - is intended to be for local site preferences and exceptions.
As an example, if your ISP or your bank has specific requirements, and need
special handling, this kind of thing should go here. This file will not be
upgraded.
- * standard.action - is used by the web based editor, to set various
+ * standard.action - is used by the web based editor, to set various
pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section in
default.action. These have increasing levels of aggressiveness and have no
influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the editor.
It is not recommend to edit this file.
+
The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
file, and are processed in the order they are defined. The content of these can
all be viewed and edited from http://config.privoxy.org/show-status.
rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written
to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking fooled, and
much more. See below for a complete list of actions.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1. Finding the Right Mix
some sites unusable that rely on these techniques to work properly. Finding the
right mix of actions is not always easy and certainly a matter of personal
taste. In general, it can be said that the more "aggressive" your default
-settings (in the top section of the actions file) are, the more exceptions for
+settings (in the top section of the actions file) are, the more exceptions for
"trusted" sites you will have to make later. If, for example, you want to kill
popup windows per default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for
sites that you regularly use and that require popups for actually useful
things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again
:).
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.2. How to Edit
If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit
the the actions files. Look at default.action which is richly commented.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.3. How Actions are Applied to URLs
list of applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the
heading of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not, the
-effects are aggregated (e.g. a URL might match both the "+handle-as-image" and
-"+block" actions).
+effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading
+line of { +handle-as-image }, then later another one with just { +block },
+resulting in both actions to apply.
You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting http://
config.privoxy.org/show-url-info.
More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, Anatomy of an Action.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.4. Patterns
<path> are optional. (This is why the pattern / matches all URLs).
www.example.com/
-
is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to www.example.com,
regardless of which document on that server is requested.
www.example.com
-
means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing / may be
omitted.
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, i.e. on any web
server.
index.html
-
matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and there
is no top-level domain called .html.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.4.1. The Domain Pattern
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.
.example.
-
matches any domain that CONTAINS .example. (Correctly speaking: It matches
any FQDN that contains example as a domain.)
+
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, you can
mixed:
ad*.example.com
-
- matches "adserver.example.com", "ads.example.com", etc but not
+ 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.c*
-
matches www1.example.com, www4.example.cc, wwwd.example.cy,
wwwz.example.com etc., but not wwww.example.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.4.2. The Path Pattern
Privoxy uses Perl compatible regular expressions (through the PCRE library) for
matches as if it would start with a "^" (regular expression speak for the
beginning of a line).
-Please also note that matching in the path is case INSENSITIVE by default, but
+Please also note that matching in the path is CASE INSENSITIVE by default, but
you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the "(?
-i)" switch: www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* will match only documents whose
path starts with PaTtErN in exactly this capitalization.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5. Actions
There are three classes of actions:
- * Boolean, i.e the action can only be "enabled" or "disabled". Syntax:
+ * Boolean, i.e the action can only be "enabled" or "disabled". Syntax:
+name # enable action name
-name # disable action name
Example: +block
- * Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of
+ * Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of
action. Syntax:
+name{param} # enable action and set parameter to param,
Example: +hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }
- * Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions, but they behave
+ * Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions, but they behave
differently: If the action applies multiple times to the same URL, but with
different parameters, all the parameters from all matches are remembered.
This is used for actions that can be executed for the same request
Examples: +add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text} and +filter{html-annoyances}
+
If nothing is specified in any actions 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
more than one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
The list of valid Privoxy actions are:
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.1. add-header
Typical use:
-
Confuse log analysis, custom applications
Effect:
-
Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
Type:
-
Multi-value.
Parameter:
-
Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not
checked. It is recommended that you use the "X-" prefix for custom headers.
Notes:
-
This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
"HTTP headers" are, you definitely don't need to worry about this one.
Example usage:
-
+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.2. block
Typical use:
-
Block ads or other obnoxious content
Effect:
-
Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
requests are not forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with
a substitute page or image, as determined by the handle-as-image and
set-image-blocker actions.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
Privoxy sends a special "BLOCKED" page for requests to blocked pages. This
page contains links to find out why the request was blocked, and a
click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
determined by its parameter, if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is
sent.
- It is important to understand this process, in order to understand how
+ It is important to understand this process, in order to understand how
Privoxy deals with ads and other unwanted content.
The filter action can perform a very similar task, by "blocking" banner
the two.
Example usage (section):
-
{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
.nasty-stuff.example.com
.ad.doubleclick.net
.ads.r.us
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.3. crunch-incoming-cookies
Typical use:
-
Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
Effect:
-
Deletes any "Set-Cookie:" HTTP headers from server replies.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
This action is only concerned with incoming cookies. For outgoing cookies,
use crunch-outgoing-cookies. Use both to disable cookies completely.
from being set.
Example usage:
-
+crunch-incoming-cookies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.4. crunch-outgoing-cookies
Typical use:
-
Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
Effect:
-
Deletes any "Cookie:" HTTP headers from client requests.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
This action is only concerned with outgoing cookies. For incoming cookies,
use crunch-incoming-cookies. Use both to disable cookies completely.
from being read.
Example usage:
-
+crunch-outgoing-cookies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.5. deanimate-gifs
Typical use:
-
Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.
Effect:
-
De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
"last" or "first"
Notes:
-
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
a GIF.
Example usage:
-
+deanimate-gifs{last}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.6. downgrade-http-version
Typical use:
-
Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1
Effect:
-
Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
This is a left-over from the time when Privoxy didn't support important
HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the unlikely case that you
experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server out there. Not all
might need this action.
Example usage (section):
-
{+downgrade-http-version}
problem-host.example.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.7. fast-redirects
Typical use:
-
Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links
Effect:
-
Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs resulting
Some sites just don't work without it.
Example usage:
-
{+fast-redirects}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.8. filter
Typical use:
-
Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
do fun text replacements, etc.
Effect:
-
Text documents, including HTML and JavaScript, to which this action
applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression
based substitutions.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
The name of a filter, as defined in the filter file (typically
- default.filter, set by the filterfile option in the config file)
+ default.filter, set by the filterfile option in the config file). Filtering
+ can be completely disabled without the use of parameters.
Notes:
-
- For your convenience, there are a bunch of pre-defined filters available in
- the distribution filter file that you can use. See the example below for a
- list.
+ For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
+ in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below
+ for a list.
This is potentially a very powerful feature! But "rolling your own" filters
requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more noticeable
on slower connections.
+ The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the buffer-limit
+ option in the main config file. The default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this
+ limit is exceeded, the buffered data, and all pending data, is passed
+ through unfiltered. Inappropriate MIME types are not filtered.
+
At this time, Privoxy cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed documents. If you
want filtering to work on all documents, even those that would normally be
sent compressed, use the prevent-compression action in conjunction with
filter.
- Filtering can achieve some of the effects as the block action, i.e. it can
- be used to block ads and banners.
+ Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the block action, i.e. it
+ can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism works quite
+ differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners based on their size
+ (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat standardized.
Feedback with suggestions for new or improved filters is particularly
welcome!
Example usage (with filters from the distribution default.filter file):
-
+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
- +filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size (very efficient!)
+ +filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners based on their size for this page (very efficient!)
+
+ +filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners based on the link they are contained in (experimental)
+
+ +filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective
+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come sneaking in the HTML or JS content
+filter{crude-parental} # Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ +filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.9. handle-as-image
Typical use:
-
Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images if they
get blocked)
Effect:
-
This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as
images. If the block action also applies, the presence or absence of this
mark decides whether an HTML "blocked" page, or a replacement image (as
substitute for the blocked content.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
The below generic example section is actually part of default.action. It
marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and
should be left intact.
reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For
- instance, (inline) ad frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't
- display properly. Forcing handle-as-image in this situation will not
+ instance, (in-line) ad frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they
+ won't display properly. Forcing handle-as-image in this situation will not
replace the ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
Example usage (sections):
-
# Generic image extensions:
#
{+handle-as-image}
# Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
ad.doubleclick.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.10. hide-forwarded-for-headers
Typical use:
-
Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request
Effect:
-
Deletes any existing "X-Forwarded-for:" HTTP header from client requests,
and prevents adding a new one.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
It is fairly safe to leave this on.
This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate
like requests from a pool of different users sharing the same proxy.
Example usage:
-
+hide-forwarded-for-headers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.11. hide-from-header
Typical use:
-
Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address
Effect:
-
Deletes any existing "From:" HTTP header, or replaces it with the specified
string.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
Keyword: "block", or any user defined value.
Notes:
-
The keyword "block" will completely remove the header (not to be confused
with the block action).
headers anymore.
Example usage:
-
+hide-from-header{block}
-
or
-
+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.12. hide-referrer
Typical use:
-
Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site
Effect:
-
Deletes the "Referer:" (sic) HTTP header from the client request, or
replaces it with a forged one.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
- + "block" to delete the header completely.
+ + "block" to delete the header completely.
- + "forge" to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are
+ + "forge" to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are
talking to.
- + Any other string to set a user defined referrer.
+ + Any other string to set a user defined referrer.
-Notes:
+Notes:
"forge" is the preferred option here, since some servers will not send
images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable content from
being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded by their
to be spelled as "referer".)
Example usage:
-
+hide-referrer{forge}
-
or
-
+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.13. hide-user-agent
Typical use:
-
Conceal your type of browser and client operating system
Effect:
-
Replaces the value of the "User-Agent:" HTTP header in client requests with
the specified value.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
Any user-defined string.
Notes:
-
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Warning |
- |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header |
|in order to customize their content for different browsers |
|(which, by the way, is NOT a smart way to do that!). |
This action is scheduled for improvement.
Example usage:
-
+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.14. kill-popups
Typical use:
-
Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows
Effect:
-
While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens pop-up
windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
This action is easily confused with the built-in, hardwired filter action,
but there are important differences: For kill-popups, the document need not
be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while downloading. But
filter{js-annoyances} instead.
Example usage:
-
+kill-popups
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.15. limit-connect
Typical use:
-
Prevent abuse of Privoxy as a TCP proxy relay
Effect:
-
Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes,
with the minimum defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
Notes:
-
By default, i.e. if no limit-connect action applies, Privoxy only allows
HTTP CONNECT requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
limit-connect if more fine-grained control is desired for some or all
destinations.
- The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
- ("https://" URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy connects
+ 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 server. This can be a big
security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be abused as TCP relays
change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
Example usages:
-
+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
+limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
+limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.16. prevent-compression
Typical use:
-
Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be passed
through filters
Effect:
-
Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which is
generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the filter,
deanimate-gifs and kill-popups actions to work, Privoxy needs access to the
those sites. See the example for how to do that.
Example usage (sections):
-
# Set default:
#
{+prevent-compression}
www.debianhelp.org
www.pclinuxonline.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.17. send-vanilla-wafer
Typical use:
-
Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
Effect:
-
Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any
copyright on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track
you.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be
used to track you.
This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
Example usage:
-
+send-vanilla-wafer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.18. send-wafer
Typical use:
-
Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless
data.
Effect:
-
Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
Type:
-
Multi-value.
Parameter:
-
A string of the form "name=value".
Notes:
-
Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same
request, resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
Example usage (section):
-
{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
my-internal-testing-server.void
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.19. session-cookies-only
Typical use:
-
Allow only temporary "session" cookies (for the current browser session
only).
Effect:
-
Deletes the "expires" field from "Set-Cookie:" server headers. Most
browsers will not store such cookies permanently and forget them in between
sessions.
Type:
-
Boolean.
Parameter:
-
N/A
Notes:
-
This is less strict than crunch-incoming-cookies / crunch-outgoing-cookies
and allows you to browse websites that insist or rely on setting cookies,
without compromising your privacy too badly.
crunch-incoming-cookies or crunch-outgoing-cookies. If you do, cookies will
be plainly killed.
- Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an
+ Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an
"expires" field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out
to be sure.
Example usage:
-
+session-cookies-only
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.20. set-image-blocker
Typical use:
-
Choose the replacement for blocked images
Effect:
-
This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If both block and
handle-as-image also apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an
image, then the parameter of this action decides what will be sent as a
replacement.
Type:
-
Parameterized.
Parameter:
-
- + "pattern" to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is
+ + "pattern" to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is
visually decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners
were busted.
- + "blank" to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners
+ + "blank" to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners
disappear completely, but makes it hard to detect where Privoxy has
- blocked images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if
+ blocked images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if
Privoxy has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
- + "target-url" to send a redirect to target-url. You can redirect to any
+ + "target-url" to send a redirect to target-url. You can redirect to any
image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via "file:///" URL).
A good application of redirects is to use special Privoxy-built-in
but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of
requesting it over and over again.
-Notes:
+Notes:
The URLs for the built-in images are "http://config.privoxy.org/
send-banner?type=type", where type is either "blank" or "pattern".
image.
Example usage:
-
Built-in pattern:
+set-image-blocker{pattern}
+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.5.21. Summary
Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header content, and other
criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules for all
sites. See the Appendix for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.6. 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 name can contain any character except space, tab, "=", "{"
-and "}", but we strongly recommend that you only use "a" to "z", "0" to "9",
+and "}", but we strongly recommend that you only use "a" to "z", "0" to "9",
"+", and "-". Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start
with a "+" or "-" sign, since they are merely textually expanded.
built-in web-based action file editor honors aliases when reading the actions
files, but it expands them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are
of course preserved, but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections
-that use aliases with it. This is likely to change in future versions of
+that use aliases with it. This is likely to change in future versions of
Privoxy.
Now let's define some aliases...
Aliases like "shop" and "fragile" are often used for "problem" sites that
require some actions to be disabled in order to function properly.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.7. Actions Files Tutorial
organized, how actions are specified and applied to URLs, how patterns work,
and how to define and use aliases. Now, let's look at an example default.action
and user.action file and see how all these pieces come together:
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.7.1. default.action
starts, so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want.
The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only one
-pattern, "/", but this pattern matches all URLs.. Therefore, the set of actions
+pattern, "/", but this pattern matches all URLs. Therefore, the set of actions
used in this "default" section will be applied to all requests as a start. It
can be partly or wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or
in user.action, but it will still be largely responsible for your overall
Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is no real
need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless, to have a
-complete listing for your reference. (Remember: A "+" preceding the action name
+complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a "+" preceding the action name
enables the action, a "-" disables!). Also note how this long line has been
made more readable by splitting it into multiple lines with line continuation.
-filter{fun} \
+filter{nimda} \
+filter{banners-by-size} \
+ -filter{banners-by-link} \
+ -filter{img-reorder} \
-filter{shockwave-flash} \
-filter{crude-parental} \
+ -filter{js-events} \
-handle-as-image \
+hide-forwarded-for-headers \
+hide-from-header{block} \
.hitbox.com
You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner servers
-ads.company.com, or call the directory in which the banners are stored simply
+ads.company.com, or call the directory in which the banners are stored simply
"banners". So the above generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want to
The actual default.action is of course more comprehensive, but we hope this
example made clear how it works.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.7.2. user.action
So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies, which
-would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now, you'd maybe want to
-be more specific and have customized rules that are more suitable to your
-personal habits and preferences. These would be for narrowly defined situations
-like your ISP or your bank, and should be placed in user.action, which is
-parsed after all other actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding
-any previously defined actions. user.action is also a safe place for your
-personal settings, since default.action is actively maintained by the Privoxy
-developers and you'll probably want to install updated versions from time to
-time.
+would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now, you might want to be
+more specific and have customized rules that are more suitable to your personal
+habits and preferences. These would be for narrowly defined situations like
+your ISP or your bank, and should be placed in user.action, which is parsed
+after all other actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any
+previously defined actions. user.action is also a safe place for your personal
+settings, since default.action is actively maintained by the Privoxy developers
+and you'll probably want to install updated versions from time to time.
So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
user.action:
.osdn.net
Note that allow-ads has been aliased to -block -filter{banners-by-size} above.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. The Filter File
Appendix on regular expressions, and see the Perl manual for the s///
operator's syntax and Perl-style regular expressions in general. The below
examples might also help to get you started.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.1. Filter File Tutorial
only the exact string "document.referrer". The dot needed to be escaped, i.e.
preceded by a backslash, to take away its special meaning as a joker, and make
it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is: Match from the start of the
-first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including, the text
+first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including, the text
"document.referrer", if both are present in the page (and appear in that
order).
option says that the match may span multiple lines in the page, and the g
option again means that the substitution is global.
-So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
+So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
"document.referrer". Remember the parts of the script from (and including) the
start tag up to (and excluding) the string "document.referrer" as $1, and the
part following that string, up to and including the closing tag, as $2.
# The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
#
-s/window\.status\s*=\s*['"].*?['"]/dUmMy=1/ig
+s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig
\s stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline, carriage return, form
feed), so that \s* means: "zero or more whitespace". The ? in .*? makes this
matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the U option is not set). The
-['"] construct means: "a single or a double quote".
+['"] construct means: "a single or a double quote". Finally, \1 is a
+backreference to the first parenthesis just like $1 above, with the difference
+that in the pattern, a backslash indicates a backreference, whereas in the
+substitute, it's the dollar.
So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
strings to the "window.status" object with a dummy assignment (using a variable
# Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
#
-s/(<body .*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU
+s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU
Including the OnUnload event binding in the HTML DOM was a CRIME. When I close
-a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta. This job replaces the
+a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta. This job replaces the
"onunload" attribute in "<body>" tags with the dummy word never. Note that the
-i option makes the pattern matching case-insensitive.
+i option makes the pattern matching case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy
+matching alone doesn't always guarantee a minimal match: In the first
+parenthesis, we had to use [^>]* instead of .* to prevent the match from
+exceeding the <body> tag if it doesn't contain "OnUnload", but the page's
+content does.
The last example is from the fun department:
s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig
Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead) in the job's pattern,
-which means: Don't match, if the string ".com" appears directly following
+which means: Don't match, if the string ".com" appears directly following
"microsoft" in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being
-messed, while still replacing the word everywhere else.
+trashed, while still replacing the word everywhere else.
# Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
#
s* industry[ -]leading \
| cutting[ -]edge \
+| customer[ -]focused \
+| market[ -]driven \
| award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
| high[ -]performance \
| solutions[ -]based \
liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
You get the idea?
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Templates
All Privoxy built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the "404 - No Such Domain"
error page, the "BLOCKED" page and all pages of its web-based user interface,
are generated from templates. (Privoxy must be running for the above links to
-work as intended)
+work as intended.)
These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the configuration directory
-called templates. On unixish platforms, this is typically /etc/privoxy/
+called templates. On Unixish platforms, this is typically /etc/privoxy/
templates/.
The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called
All templates refer to a style located at http://config.privoxy.org/
send-stylesheet. This is, of course, locally served by Privoxy and the source
for it can be found and edited in the cgi-style.css template.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
We value your feedback. In fact, we rely on it to improve Privoxy and its
configuration. However, please note the following hints, so we can provide you
with the best support:
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.1. Get Support
All users are of course welcome to discuss their issues on the users mailing
list, where the developers also hang around.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.2. Report Bugs
tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
Before doing so, please make sure that the bug has not already been submitted
-and observe the aditional hints at the top of the submit form.
+and observe the additional hints at the top of the submit form.
Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug
first. If unsure, try toggling off Privoxy, and see if the problem persists.
fixed in the meantime. We would appreciate if you could take the time to
upgrade to the latest version (or even the latest CVS snapshot) and verify your
bug, but this is not required for reporting.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.3. Request New Features
You are welcome to submit ideas on new features or other proposals for
improvement through our feature request tracker at http://sourceforge.net/
tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
New, improved default.action files will occasionally be made available based on
your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list and
-available from our project page.
-
+available from our the files section of our project page.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.5. Other
For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists. Technically
interested users and people who wish to contribute to the project are also
-welcome on the developers list! You can find an overview of all Prixoxy-related
+welcome on the developers list! You can find an overview of all Privoxy-related
mailing lists, including list archives, at: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?
group_id=11118.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
Some source code is based on code Copyright © 1997 by Anonymous Coders and
Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.1. License
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the
- Free Software
- Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
- Boston, MA 02111-1307
- USA
-
+ Free Software
+ Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
+ Boston, MA 02111-1307
+ USA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.2. History
inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many new features
along the way.
-The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable release, 3.0, is due in May
+The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable release, 3.0, is due in June
2002.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.3. Authors
Current Project Developers:
- Jon Foster
- Andreas Oesterhelt
- Stefan Waldherr
-
- Thomas Steudten
- Rodney Stromlund
+ Jon Foster
+ Andreas Oesterhelt
+ Stefan Waldherr
+
+ Thomas Steudten
+ Rodney Stromlund
Current Project Contributors:
- Rodrigo Barbosa (RPM specfiles)
- Hal Burgiss (docs)
- Alexander Lazic
- Gábor Lipták
- Guy
- Haroon Rafique
- David Schmidt (OS/2, Mac OSX ports)
- Joerg Strohmayer
- Sarantis Paskalis
+ Rodrigo Barbosa (RPM specfiles)
+ Hal Burgiss (docs)
+ Alexander Lazic
+ Gábor Lipták
+ Guy
+ Haroon Rafique
+ Roland Rosenfeld
+ David Schmidt (OS/2, Mac OSX ports)
+ Joerg Strohmayer
+ Sarantis Paskalis
-Originally developed by:
+Based in part on code originally developed by:
- Junkbusters Corp.
- Anonymous Coders
+ Junkbusters Corp.
+ Anonymous Coders
Thanks to the many people who have tested Privoxy, reported bugs, or made
suggestions. These include (in alphabetical order):
- Ken Arromdee
- Reiner Buehl
- Andrew J. Caines
- Clifford Caoile
- Peter E
- Aaron Hamid
- Magnus Holmgren
- Paul Lieverse
- Roberto Ragusa
- Bart Schelstraete
- Darren Wiebe
-
+ Ken Arromdee
+ Devin Bayer
+ Reiner Buehl
+ Andrew J. Caines
+ Clifford Caoile
+ Michael T. Davis
+ Peter E
+ Aaron Hamid
+ Magnus Holmgren
+ Paul Lieverse
+ Roberto Ragusa
+ Maynard Riley
+ Bart Schelstraete
+ Darren Wiebe
+ jwz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13. See Also
http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
14. Appendix
14.1. Regular Expressions
\ - The "escape" character denotes that the following character should be taken
literally. This is used where one of the special characters (e.g. ".") needs to
-be taken literally and not as a special meta-character. Example: "example
-\.com", makes sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded
-to its meta-character meaning of any single character).
+be taken literally and not as a special meta-character. Example: "example\.com"
+, makes sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
+meta-character meaning of any single character).
[] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if any of the enclosed
characters are encountered. For instance, "[0-9]" matches any numeric digit
"/(this|that) example/" uses grouping and the bar character and would match
either "this example" or "that example", and nothing else.
-These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
+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:
|" 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
+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
+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
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
+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).
More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions: http://www.perldoc.com/
perl5.6/pod/perlre.html
-For information on regular expression based substititions and their
+For information on regular expression based substitutions and their
applications in filters, please see the filter file tutorial in this manual.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.2. Privoxy's Internal Pages
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:
+ * Privoxy main page:
+
http://config.privoxy.org/
- There is a shortcut: http://p.p/ (But it doesn't provide a fallback to a
+
+ There is a shortcut: http://p.p/ (But it doesn't provide a fall-back to a
real page, in case the request is not sent through Privoxy)
- * Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
+ * Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
editing of actions files:
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-status
- * Show the source code version numbers:
+ * Show the source code version numbers:
+
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-version
- * Show the browser's request headers:
+ * Show the browser's request headers:
+
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-request
- * Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
+ * Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
+
+
http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info
- * Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, "Privoxy" continues to run, but
+
+ * Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, "Privoxy" continues to run, but
only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
+
http://config.privoxy.org/toggle
+
Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
+
http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable
+
+
http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable
-These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
+
+These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.2.1. Bookmarklets
bar (IE) or the "Personal Toolbar" (Netscape), and run them with a single
click.
- * Privoxy - Enable
+ * Privoxy - Enable
+
+ * Privoxy - Disable
- * Privoxy - Disable
+ * Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
- * Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
+ * Privoxy- View Status
- * Privoxy- View Status
+ * Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback
- * Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback
+ * Privoxy - Why?
+
Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
www.bookmarklets.com. They have more information about bookmarklets.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.3. Chain of Events
Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
requested by your browser and Privoxy is on duty:
- * First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send the
+ * First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send the
request to Privoxy, which will in turn, relay the request to the remote web
server after passing the following tests:
- * Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI pages (e.g http://p.p/)
+ * Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI pages (e.g http://p.p/)
and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
- * Next, Privoxy checks to see if the URL matches any "+block" patterns. If
+ * Next, Privoxy checks to see if the URL matches any "+block" patterns. If
so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be
contacted. "+handle-as-image" is then checked and if it does not match, an
HTML "BLOCKED" page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match, an image is
returned. The type of image depends on the setting of "+set-image-blocker"
(blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
- * Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the trust file, then
+ * Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the trust file, then
that is done.
- * If the URL pattern matches the "+fast-redirects" action, it is then
+ * If the URL pattern matches the "+fast-redirects" action, it is then
processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
- * Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
+ * Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. "+hide-user-agent", etc.),
headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and their
parameters.
- * Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
+ * Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
page and related data).
- * First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
+ * First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
- filtered as deterimed by the "+crunch-incoming-cookies",
+ filtered as deterimined by the "+crunch-incoming-cookies",
"+session-cookies-only", and "+downgrade-http-version" actions.
- * If the "+kill-popups" action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript
+ * If the "+kill-popups" action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript
document, the popup-code in the response is filtered on-the-fly as it is
received.
- * If a "+filter" or "+deanimate-gifs" action applies (and the document type
+ * If a "+filter" or "+deanimate-gifs" action applies (and the document type
fits the action), the rest of the page is read into memory (up to a
configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from default.filter) are
processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
If neither "+filter" or "+deanimate-gifs" matches, then Privoxy passes the
raw data through to the client browser as it becomes available.
- * As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it reads
+ * As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it reads
and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page source,
e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.4. Anatomy of an Action
The way Privoxy applies actions and filters to any given URL can be complex,
One quick test to see if Privoxy is causing a problem or not, is to disable it
temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting step. See the
Bookmarklets section on a quick and easy way to do this (be sure to flush
-caches afterward!).
+caches afterward!). Looking at the logs is a good idea too.
Privoxy also provides the http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info page that can
show us very specifically how actions are being applied to any given URL. This
But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
-apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
+apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
".google.com". The first is negating our previous cookie setting, which was for
"+session-cookies-only" (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent
cookies for google. The second turns off any "+fast-redirects" action, allowing
-this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading dot here --
+this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading dot here --
".google.com". This will match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com
domain also, such as "www.google.com". So, apparently, we have these two
-actions defined somewhere in the lower part of our default.action file, and
+actions defined somewhere in the lower part of our default.action file, and
"google.com" is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
Then, for our user.action file, we again have no hits.
-And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
+And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
Privoxy is applying all its "actions" to "google.com":
Final results:
and make it more readable.
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...
+giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default rules in
the first section is causing the problem. This would require some guesswork,
and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule. One likely
-cause would be one of the "{+filter}" actions. Try adding the URL for the site
-to one of aliases that turn off "+filter":
+cause would be one of the "{+filter}" actions. These tend to be harder to
+troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
+"+filter":
{shop}
.quietpc.com
{-filter}
.forbes.com
-This would probably be most appropriately put in user.action, for local site
-exceptions.
+This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most
+appropriately put in user.action, for local site exceptions.
+
+Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the "+filter
+{banners-by-size}" rule, which assumes that images of certain sizes are ad
+banners (works well most of the time since these tend to be standardized).
"{fragile}" is an alias that disables most actions. This can be used as a last
resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this still does not
work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by one to find
which one(s) is causing the problem.
-
projects / privoxy.git / commitdiff