1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity GPLv2 SYSTEM "../../LICENSE">
13 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
14 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
15 <!entity changelog SYSTEM "changelog.sgml">
16 <!entity p-version "3.0.21">
17 <!entity p-status "stable">
18 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
19 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
20 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
21 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
22 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
23 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
25 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
26 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
27 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
28 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
29 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
30 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
33 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
36 This file belongs into
37 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
39 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.173 2013/03/01 17:44:24 fabiankeil Exp $
41 Copyright (C) 2001-2013 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
44 ========================================================================
45 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
46 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
47 ========================================================================
54 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
58 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
59 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
60 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2013 by
61 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
65 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.173 2013/03/01 17:44:24 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
69 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
70 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
71 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
72 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
85 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
86 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
87 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
93 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
94 install, configure and use <ulink
95 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
98 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
100 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
103 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
104 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
105 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
106 contact the developers.
110 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
116 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
117 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
119 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
120 <application>Privoxy</application>, &p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
121 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
122 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
123 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
124 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
128 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
131 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
132 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
133 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
138 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
139 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
141 In addition to the core
142 features of ad blocking and
143 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
144 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
145 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
146 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
148 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
150 <!-- end boilerplate -->
155 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
158 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
159 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
162 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
163 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
164 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
165 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
171 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
172 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
173 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
174 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
177 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
178 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
180 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
183 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
185 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
186 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
188 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
189 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
194 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
195 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
198 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
199 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
200 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
203 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
204 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
205 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
206 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
210 <term>Arguments:</term>
213 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
216 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
222 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
223 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
224 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
225 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
226 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
227 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
228 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
229 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
230 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
231 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
232 write to its log and configuration files.
237 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
238 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
241 First, make sure that no previous installations of
242 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
243 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
244 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
245 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
251 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
252 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
253 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
254 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
258 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
259 into will contain all of the configuration files.
263 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
264 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
266 Installation instructions for the OS X platform depend upon whether
267 you downloaded a ready-built installation package (.pkg or .mpkg) or have
268 downloaded the source code.
271 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="OS-X-install-from-package">
272 <title>Installation from ready-built package</title>
274 The downloaded file will either be a .pkg (for OS X 10.5 upwards) or a bzipped
275 .mpkg file (for OS X 10.4). The former can be double-clicked as is and the
276 installation will start; double-clicking the latter will unzip the .mpkg file
277 which can then be double-clicked to commence the installation.
280 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
281 (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
282 configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
283 proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
286 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
287 starts up, remove or rename the file <literal>/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist</literal>
288 (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
289 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal> (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
292 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the scripts startPrivoxy.sh
293 and stopPrivoxy.sh supplied in /Applications/Privoxy. They must be run from an
294 administrator account, using sudo.
297 To uninstall, run /Applications/Privoxy/uninstall.command as sudo from an
298 administrator account.
301 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="OS-X-install-from-source">
302 <title>Installation from source</title>
304 To build and install the Privoxy source code on OS X you will need to obtain
305 the macsetup module from the Privoxy Sourceforge CVS repository (refer to
306 Sourceforge help for details of how to set up a CVS client to have read-only
307 access to the repository). This module contains scripts that leverage the usual
308 open-source tools (available as part of Apple's free of charge Xcode
309 distribution or via the usual open-source software package managers for OS X
310 (MacPorts, Homebrew, Fink etc.) to build and then install the privoxy binary
311 and associated files. The macsetup module's README file contains complete
312 instructions for its use.
315 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful installation
316 (and thereafter every time your computer starts up) however you will need to
317 configure your web browser(s) to use it. To do so, configure them to use a
318 proxy for HTTP and HTTPS at the address 127.0.0.1:8118.
321 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your computer
322 starts up, remove or rename the file <literal>/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.ijbswa.privoxy.plist</literal>
323 (on OS X 10.5 and higher) or the folder named
324 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal> (on OS X 10.4 'Tiger').
327 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
328 for Mac OS X (also part of the macsetup module). This application can start
329 and stop the privoxy service and display its log and configuration files.
332 To uninstall, run the macsetup module's uninstall.sh as sudo from an
333 administrator account.
337 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
338 <sect3 id="installation-freebsd"><title>FreeBSD</title>
341 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
342 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
348 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
349 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
352 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
353 is to download the source tarball from our
354 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
359 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
360 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
361 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
362 CVS repository</ulink>.
364 deprecated...out of business.
365 or simply download <ulink
366 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
371 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
373 <!-- end boilerplate -->
376 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
377 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
380 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
381 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
382 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
383 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
387 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
388 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
389 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
390 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
391 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
392 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
400 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
402 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
403 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
404 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
408 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
410 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
411 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
414 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
415 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
423 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
424 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
425 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
426 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
429 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
430 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
431 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
432 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
433 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
438 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
439 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
440 any important configuration files!
445 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
446 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
451 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
452 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
453 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
454 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
461 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
462 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
463 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
464 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
465 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
466 be aware of the security issues involved.
473 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
474 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
475 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
476 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
477 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
478 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
479 settings as yet (see above).
486 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
487 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
488 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
489 standards and past practices. See <ulink
490 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
491 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
492 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
498 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
499 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
500 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
501 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
505 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
509 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
510 to turn off compression for all sites in
511 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
512 <filename>user.action</filename>).
519 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
520 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
521 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
528 Some installers may not automatically start
529 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
540 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
541 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
547 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
548 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
555 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
556 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
557 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
558 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
565 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
566 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
567 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
573 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
574 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
575 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
576 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
577 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
578 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
579 browser from using these protocols.
585 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
586 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
587 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
588 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
594 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
595 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
596 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
597 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
599 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
600 Be sure to read the warnings first.
603 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
604 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
605 You might also want to look at the <link
606 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
607 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
614 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
615 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
616 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
617 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
618 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
619 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
620 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
621 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
622 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
623 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
628 Did anyone test these lately?
632 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
633 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
641 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
642 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
649 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
657 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
659 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
660 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
662 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
663 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
666 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
667 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
668 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
671 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
672 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
673 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
676 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
677 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
678 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
679 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
680 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
681 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
682 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
683 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
684 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
685 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
686 habits and preferences.
689 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
690 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
691 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
692 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
693 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
694 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
695 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
696 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
697 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
698 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
701 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
702 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
703 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
704 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
705 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
708 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
709 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
710 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
711 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
712 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
713 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
714 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
715 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
716 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
717 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
718 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
723 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
724 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
725 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
727 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
728 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
736 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
737 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
738 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
739 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
740 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
741 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
742 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
743 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
749 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
750 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
751 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
752 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
753 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
754 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
755 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
756 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
757 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
758 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
759 an entire HTML page in most situations.
765 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
766 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
767 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
768 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
775 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
776 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
777 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
778 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
779 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
780 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
783 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
787 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
788 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
793 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
794 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
799 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
800 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
809 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
810 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
811 are very different from <literal><link
812 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
813 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
814 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
815 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
816 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
817 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
818 some pitfalls to be wary off.
822 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
823 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
824 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
825 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
826 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
830 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
831 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
832 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
833 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
834 cases it's safe to enable again.
838 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
839 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
840 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
841 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
842 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
843 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
844 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
845 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
849 A quick and simple step by step example:
857 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
858 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
866 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
871 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
872 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
875 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
877 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
880 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
883 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
892 You should have a section with only
893 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
894 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
895 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
896 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
897 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
898 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
899 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
900 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
906 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
907 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
908 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
909 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
910 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
911 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
916 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
917 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
925 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
926 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
927 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
928 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
933 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
934 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
935 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
938 There are also various
939 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
940 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
941 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
942 depth in later sections.
949 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
952 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
954 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
956 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
957 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
958 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
959 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
960 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
961 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
965 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
966 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
969 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
971 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
972 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
975 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
978 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
986 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
990 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
995 Or optionally on some platforms:
999 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1005 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1006 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1011 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1012 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1013 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1018 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1022 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1026 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1027 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1028 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1029 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1030 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1033 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1035 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1036 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1039 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1042 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1050 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1051 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1052 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1053 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1054 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1055 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1059 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1060 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1061 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1062 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1063 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1066 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1067 <title>Debian</title>
1069 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1070 default. It will use the file
1071 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1076 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1081 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1082 <title>Windows</title>
1084 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1085 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1086 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1087 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1091 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1092 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1093 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1094 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1095 instructions</link> for details.
1099 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1100 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1102 Example Unix startup command:
1106 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1111 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1114 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1115 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1116 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1117 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1121 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1122 <title>Mac OS X</title>
1124 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
1125 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
1126 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
1129 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
1130 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
1131 start every time your computer starts up.
1134 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
1135 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
1136 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
1139 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
1140 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
1143 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
1144 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
1145 to uninstall the software is also available.
1148 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
1149 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
1157 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1161 must find a better place for this paragraph
1164 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1165 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1166 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1167 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1168 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1169 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1173 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1174 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1175 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1176 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1177 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1178 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1179 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1180 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1181 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1185 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1186 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
1187 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
1188 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1189 popups (explained below).
1193 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1194 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1195 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1196 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1197 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1198 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1199 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1200 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1201 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1205 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1206 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1207 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1208 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1209 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1210 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1211 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1212 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1213 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1217 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1218 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1219 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1220 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1221 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1222 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1223 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1227 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1228 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1229 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1230 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1231 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1232 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1237 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1238 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1239 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1244 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1245 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1246 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1247 Developers</quote></link> below.
1252 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1253 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1254 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1256 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1257 command-line options:
1265 <emphasis>--config-test</emphasis>
1268 Exit after loading the configuration files before binding to
1269 the listen address. The exit code signals whether or not the
1270 configuration files have been successfully loaded.
1273 If the exit code is 1, at least one of the configuration files
1274 is invalid, if it is 0, all the configuration files have been
1275 successfully loaded (but may still contain errors that can
1276 currently only be detected at run time).
1279 This option doesn't affect the log setting, combination with
1280 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis> is recommended if a configured
1281 log file shouldn't be used.
1286 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1289 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1294 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1297 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1302 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1305 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1306 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1311 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1314 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1315 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1316 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1317 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1322 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1325 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1326 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1327 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1332 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1335 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1336 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1337 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1338 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1344 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1347 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1348 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1349 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1350 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1353 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1354 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1355 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1356 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1362 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1365 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1366 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1367 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1368 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1369 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1370 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1378 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1379 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1380 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1381 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1389 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1392 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1393 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1395 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1396 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1397 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1398 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1402 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1405 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1407 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1408 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1409 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1410 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1411 You will see the following section:
1415 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1418 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1422 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1425 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1428 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1431 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1434 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1437 ▪ <ulink
1438 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1446 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1447 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1448 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1449 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1450 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1451 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1455 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1456 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1457 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1458 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1459 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1460 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1461 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1462 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1467 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1468 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1470 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1471 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1476 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1481 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1483 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1484 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1486 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1487 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1488 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1489 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1490 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1491 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1495 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1496 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1497 principle configuration files are:
1505 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1506 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1507 on Windows. This is a required file.
1513 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
1514 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
1515 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
1518 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
1519 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
1520 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
1523 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1524 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1525 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1526 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1527 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
1528 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
1529 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
1532 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1534 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1536 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1537 various actions files.
1543 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1544 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1545 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1546 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1547 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1548 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1549 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1550 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1551 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1552 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1553 locally defined filters or customizations.
1561 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
1562 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
1563 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
1567 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1568 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1569 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1570 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1571 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1572 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1573 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1577 The actions files and filter files
1578 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1579 maximum flexibility.
1583 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1584 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1585 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1586 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1587 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1588 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1589 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1594 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1595 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1596 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1597 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1603 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1606 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1608 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1609 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1610 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1612 <!-- end include -->
1615 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1619 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1621 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1625 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
1626 We should only describe them at one place.
1629 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
1630 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
1631 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1632 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
1633 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
1634 Each action does something a little different.
1635 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
1636 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
1637 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
1641 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
1648 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
1649 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1650 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
1651 It should be the first actions file loaded
1656 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
1657 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
1658 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
1659 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
1660 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
1665 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1666 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1667 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1668 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1673 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
1676 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
1677 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
1678 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
1679 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
1680 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
1681 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
1682 not working as they should.
1685 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
1686 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
1687 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
1688 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
1689 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
1690 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
1691 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
1692 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
1693 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
1694 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
1695 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
1696 lower sections of this internal page.
1699 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
1700 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
1701 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
1704 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1705 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
1708 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1709 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1710 <colspec colname=c1>
1711 <colspec colname=c2>
1712 <colspec colname=c3>
1713 <colspec colname=c4>
1716 <entry>Feature</entry>
1717 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1718 <entry>Medium</entry>
1719 <entry>Advanced</entry>
1724 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1725 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1726 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1727 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1733 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
1734 <entry>medium</entry>
1740 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1747 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1753 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1754 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1755 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1756 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1760 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
1762 <entry>medium</entry>
1763 <entry>medium/high</entry>
1767 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1769 <entry>session-only</entry>
1774 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1781 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1788 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1795 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1802 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1809 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1816 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1832 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1833 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1834 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
1835 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1837 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1838 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
1839 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
1840 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
1841 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
1842 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
1843 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
1844 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
1848 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1849 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1850 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1851 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1852 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1853 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1854 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1855 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1856 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1857 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1858 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1859 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1863 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1864 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1865 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1866 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1867 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1871 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1873 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1875 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1876 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1877 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1878 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
1879 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
1880 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1881 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1882 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1883 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1884 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
1885 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1889 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1890 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1891 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1892 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1896 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1898 <title>How to Edit</title>
1900 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1901 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1902 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1903 Note: the config file option <link
1904 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
1905 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
1906 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
1907 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
1908 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
1909 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
1910 Experienced users only!
1914 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1915 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
1916 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
1922 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1923 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
1925 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1926 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1927 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1928 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1929 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1930 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
1934 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1935 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
1936 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
1937 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
1938 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
1942 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
1943 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
1944 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
1945 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
1946 then later another one with just <literal>{
1947 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
1948 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
1949 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
1955 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
1956 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
1958 media.example.com/.*banners
1959 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
1963 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
1964 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1968 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1969 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
1973 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1974 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1975 <title>Patterns</title>
1977 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
1978 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
1979 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
1980 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
1981 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
1982 against many similar patterns.
1986 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
1987 <literal><domain><port>/<path></literal>, where the
1988 <literal><domain></literal>, the <literal><port></literal>
1989 and the <literal><path></literal> are optional. (This is why the special
1990 <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
1991 portion of the URL pattern (e.g. <literal>http://</literal>) should
1992 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
1995 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
1996 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
1997 while the path part uses more flexible
1998 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
1999 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
2002 The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
2003 (<literal>:</literal>). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
2004 it has to be put into angle brackets
2005 (<literal><</literal>, <literal>></literal>).
2010 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2013 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2014 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2015 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2016 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2021 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2024 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2030 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2033 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2034 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2039 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2042 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2043 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2048 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2051 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2052 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2057 <term><literal>/</literal></term>
2060 Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
2061 domain or the path to match anything.
2066 <term><literal>:8000/</literal></term>
2069 Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000.
2074 <term><literal><2001:db8::1>/</literal></term>
2077 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>2001:db8::1</literal>.
2078 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
2083 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2086 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2087 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2095 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2096 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2099 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2100 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2106 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2109 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2110 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2111 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2112 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2113 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2118 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2121 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2122 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2123 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2128 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2131 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2132 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2133 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2134 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2135 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2136 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2137 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2145 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2146 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2147 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2149 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2150 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2151 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2152 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2153 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2154 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2159 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2162 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2163 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2168 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2171 matches all of the above, and then some.
2176 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2179 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2180 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2185 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2188 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2189 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2190 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2191 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2198 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2203 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2206 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2207 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2210 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
2211 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2212 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
2213 and is thus more flexible.
2217 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2218 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
2219 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
2223 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2224 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2225 for the beginning of a line).
2229 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2230 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2231 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2232 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2233 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2238 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2241 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2242 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2243 regular expression. This is redundant
2248 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2251 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2252 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2253 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2254 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2255 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2256 requirement. It also would match
2257 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2258 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2263 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2266 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2267 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2268 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2269 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2274 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2277 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2278 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2279 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2280 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2285 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2288 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2289 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2290 one is limited to common image formats.
2297 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2298 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2303 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2307 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2310 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2311 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2312 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2313 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2317 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2318 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2319 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2320 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2321 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2322 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2326 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2327 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2328 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2329 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2330 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2334 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2335 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2336 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2340 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2341 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2342 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2343 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2347 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2348 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2349 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2350 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2351 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2352 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2353 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2354 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2355 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2359 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2360 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2361 make too much sense.
2368 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2371 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2373 <sect2 id="actions">
2374 <title>Actions</title>
2376 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2377 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2378 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2379 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2380 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2381 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2382 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2383 previously applied.</quote>
2388 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2389 separated by whitespace, like in
2390 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2391 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2392 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2393 of the actions file.
2397 Actions fall into three categories:
2404 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2405 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2409 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2410 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2413 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
2420 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2425 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2426 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2427 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2430 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2431 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2434 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
2440 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2441 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2442 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2443 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2444 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2445 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2449 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2450 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2451 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2452 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2455 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2456 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2464 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2465 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2466 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2467 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2468 files will give a good starting point).
2472 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2473 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2474 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2475 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2476 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2477 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2478 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2479 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2480 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2484 <!-- start actions listing -->
2486 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2490 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2491 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2492 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2494 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2497 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2499 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2500 <title>add-header</title>
2504 <term>Typical use:</term>
2506 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2511 <term>Effect:</term>
2514 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2521 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2523 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2528 <term>Parameter:</term>
2531 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2532 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2542 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2543 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2544 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2548 Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions.
2554 <term>Example usage:</term>
2557 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2565 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2566 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2567 <title>block</title>
2571 <term>Typical use:</term>
2573 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2578 <term>Effect:</term>
2581 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2582 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2583 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2585 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2587 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2589 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2597 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2599 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2604 <term>Parameter:</term>
2606 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
2614 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2615 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
2616 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
2617 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
2621 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2622 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2623 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2624 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2625 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2626 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2629 It is important to understand this process, in order
2630 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2631 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
2632 upon which various other features depend.
2635 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2636 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2637 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2638 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2639 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2645 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2648 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
2649 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2650 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2652 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
2653 # Block and replace with image
2657 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
2658 # Block and then ignore
2659 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
2669 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2670 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
2671 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
2675 <term>Typical use:</term>
2677 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
2682 <term>Effect:</term>
2685 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
2693 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2695 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2700 <term>Parameter:</term>
2704 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
2708 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
2709 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
2720 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
2723 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
2724 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
2729 <term>Example usage:</term>
2732 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
2739 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2740 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
2741 <title>client-header-filter</title>
2745 <term>Typical use:</term>
2748 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
2754 <term>Effect:</term>
2757 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2758 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
2765 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2767 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2772 <term>Parameter:</term>
2775 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
2776 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2785 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
2786 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
2787 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
2788 You can do that by using tags though.
2791 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
2792 and use their output as input.
2795 If the request URI gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
2796 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
2797 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
2800 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
2801 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
2809 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2813 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
2814 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
2825 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2826 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
2827 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
2831 <term>Typical use:</term>
2834 Block requests based on their headers.
2840 <term>Effect:</term>
2843 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2844 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
2852 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2854 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2859 <term>Parameter:</term>
2862 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
2863 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2872 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
2873 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
2877 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
2878 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
2884 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2888 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
2889 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
2892 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
2893 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
2895 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
2896 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
2897 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
2898 -hide-if-modified-since \
2899 -overwrite-last-modified \
2904 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
2905 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
2906 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
2907 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
2908 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
2909 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
2914 # Tag all requests with the Range header set
2915 {+client-header-tagger{range-requests}}
2918 # Disable filtering for the tagged requests.
2920 # With filtering enabled Privoxy would remove the Range headers
2921 # to be able to filter the whole response. The downside is that
2922 # it prevents clients from resuming downloads or skipping over
2923 # parts of multimedia files.
2924 {-filter -deanimate-gifs}
2935 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2936 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
2937 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
2941 <term>Typical use:</term>
2943 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
2948 <term>Effect:</term>
2951 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
2958 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2960 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2965 <term>Parameter:</term>
2977 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
2978 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
2979 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
2980 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
2981 supported by the browser.
2984 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
2985 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
2986 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
2987 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
2988 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
2991 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
2992 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
2993 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
2994 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
2995 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
2998 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
2999 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3000 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3001 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3004 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3005 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3006 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3007 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3008 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3011 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3012 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3013 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3014 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3017 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3018 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3019 more work to get the same precision.
3025 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3028 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3029 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3032 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3033 {-content-type-overwrite}
3034 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3035 www.example.net/.*style
3044 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3045 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3049 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3053 <term>Typical use:</term>
3055 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3060 <term>Effect:</term>
3063 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3070 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3072 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3077 <term>Parameter:</term>
3089 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3090 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3091 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3092 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3095 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3096 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3097 they contain the same string.
3100 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3101 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3102 parts of them, you should use a
3103 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3107 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3114 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3117 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3118 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3128 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3129 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3130 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3136 <term>Typical use:</term>
3138 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3143 <term>Effect:</term>
3146 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3153 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3155 <para>Boolean.</para>
3160 <term>Parameter:</term>
3172 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3173 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3174 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3175 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3178 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3179 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3182 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3183 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3184 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3187 It is recommended to use this action together with
3188 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3190 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3196 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3199 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3200 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3201 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3202 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3203 +crunch-if-none-match}
3212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3213 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3214 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3218 <term>Typical use:</term>
3221 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3227 <term>Effect:</term>
3230 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3237 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3239 <para>Boolean.</para>
3244 <term>Parameter:</term>
3256 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3257 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3258 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3259 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3262 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3263 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3264 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3265 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3271 <term>Example usage:</term>
3274 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3282 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3283 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3284 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3290 <term>Typical use:</term>
3292 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3297 <term>Effect:</term>
3300 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3307 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3309 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3314 <term>Parameter:</term>
3326 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3327 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3328 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3331 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3332 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3333 they contain the same string.
3336 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3337 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3338 parts of them, you should use a custom
3339 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3343 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3350 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3353 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3354 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3363 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3364 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3365 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3369 <term>Typical use:</term>
3372 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3378 <term>Effect:</term>
3381 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3388 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3390 <para>Boolean.</para>
3395 <term>Parameter:</term>
3407 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3408 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3409 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3410 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3413 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3414 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3415 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3421 <term>Example usage:</term>
3424 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3433 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3434 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3435 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3439 <term>Typical use:</term>
3441 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3446 <term>Effect:</term>
3449 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3456 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3458 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3463 <term>Parameter:</term>
3466 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3475 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3476 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3477 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3478 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3479 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3480 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3483 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3484 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3491 <term>Example usage:</term>
3494 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3501 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3502 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3503 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3507 <term>Typical use:</term>
3509 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3514 <term>Effect:</term>
3517 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3524 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3526 <para>Boolean.</para>
3531 <term>Parameter:</term>
3543 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3544 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3545 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1-related problems with some server
3549 Note that enabling this action is only a workaround. It should not
3550 be enabled for sites that work without it. While it shouldn't break
3551 any pages, it has an (usually negative) performance impact.
3554 If you come across a site where enabling this action helps, please report it,
3555 so the cause of the problem can be analyzed. If the problem turns out to be
3556 caused by a bug in <application>Privoxy</application> it should be
3557 fixed so the following release works without the work around.
3563 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3566 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3567 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3575 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3576 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3577 <title>fast-redirects</title>
3581 <term>Typical use:</term>
3583 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
3588 <term>Effect:</term>
3591 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
3592 the redirection server first.
3599 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3601 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3606 <term>Parameter:</term>
3611 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
3612 to detect redirection URLs.
3617 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
3618 for redirection URLs.
3629 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3630 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3631 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3632 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3633 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
3636 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3637 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3638 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3639 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3640 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3644 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3645 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
3646 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
3649 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
3650 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
3651 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
3652 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
3653 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
3654 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
3655 the user gets redirected anyway.
3658 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
3660 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3661 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
3662 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
3663 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3664 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
3665 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
3666 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
3667 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
3670 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
3671 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
3672 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
3673 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
3674 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
3675 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
3676 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
3682 <term>Example usage:</term>
3686 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
3689 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
3690 another.example.com/testing</screen>
3699 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3700 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3701 <title>filter</title>
3705 <term>Typical use:</term>
3707 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
3708 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
3713 <term>Effect:</term>
3716 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
3717 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
3718 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
3719 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
3720 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
3727 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3729 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3734 <term>Parameter:</term>
3737 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
3738 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
3739 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3740 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
3741 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
3742 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
3743 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
3746 When used in its negative form,
3747 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
3756 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
3757 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
3761 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3762 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3763 passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
3764 doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
3765 not incrementally displayed.)
3766 This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
3769 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
3770 filters requires a knowledge of
3771 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3772 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
3773 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
3774 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
3775 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
3776 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
3779 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
3780 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
3781 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
3782 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
3783 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
3786 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
3787 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
3788 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
3789 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
3790 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
3791 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
3794 Compressed content can't be filtered either, but if &my-app;
3795 is compiled with zlib support and a supported compression algorithm
3796 is used (gzip or deflate), &my-app; can first decompress the content
3800 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
3801 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
3802 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3803 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3806 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
3807 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3808 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
3809 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
3810 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
3814 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
3815 improved filters is particularly welcome!
3818 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
3819 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
3820 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
3821 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
3827 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
3828 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
3829 more explanation on each:</term>
3832 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3833 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
3836 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
3837 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill JavaScript event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
3840 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3841 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
3844 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3845 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
3848 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3849 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags if refresh time is larger than 9 seconds.</screen>
3852 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
3853 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows.</screen>
3856 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
3857 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML.</screen>
3860 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
3861 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
3864 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3865 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
3868 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
3869 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
3872 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3873 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
3876 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
3877 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
3880 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
3881 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
3884 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3885 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
3888 <anchor id="filter-iframes">
3889 <screen>+filter{iframes} # Removes all detected iframes. Should only be enabled for individual sites.</screen>
3892 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
3893 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
3896 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3897 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
3900 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
3901 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
3904 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3905 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3908 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3909 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
3912 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
3913 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
3916 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
3917 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
3920 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
3921 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
3924 <anchor id="filter-google">
3925 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
3928 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
3929 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
3932 <anchor id="filter-msn">
3933 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
3936 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
3937 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
3945 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3946 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
3947 <title>force-text-mode</title>
3953 <term>Typical use:</term>
3955 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
3960 <term>Effect:</term>
3963 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
3970 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3972 <para>Boolean.</para>
3977 <term>Parameter:</term>
3989 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
3990 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
3991 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
3992 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
3993 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
3994 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
3998 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
3999 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4006 <term>Example usage:</term>
4019 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4020 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4021 <title>forward-override</title>
4027 <term>Typical use:</term>
4029 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4034 <term>Effect:</term>
4037 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4044 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4046 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4051 <term>Parameter:</term>
4055 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4059 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4064 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4065 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4066 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4067 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4072 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4073 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4074 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4075 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4076 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4087 This action takes parameters similar to the
4088 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4089 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4090 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4094 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4095 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4096 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4099 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4100 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4104 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4105 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4112 <term>Example usage:</term>
4116 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4117 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4118 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4119 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4120 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4121 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4122 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
4123 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
4124 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4125 -hide-if-modified-since \
4126 -overwrite-last-modified \
4128 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4137 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4138 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4139 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4145 <term>Typical use:</term>
4147 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4152 <term>Effect:</term>
4155 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4156 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4157 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4158 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4159 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4166 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4168 <para>Boolean.</para>
4173 <term>Parameter:</term>
4185 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4186 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4187 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4188 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4189 BLOCKED message in frames.
4192 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4193 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4194 but usually this isn't necessary.
4200 <term>Example usage:</term>
4203 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4204 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4205 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
4215 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4216 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4217 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4221 <term>Typical use:</term>
4223 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they do get blocked</emphasis>, rather than HTML pages)</para>
4228 <term>Effect:</term>
4231 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4232 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4233 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4234 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4235 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4236 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4243 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4245 <para>Boolean.</para>
4250 <term>Parameter:</term>
4262 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4263 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4267 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4268 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4269 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4272 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4273 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4274 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4275 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4281 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4284 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4287 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4289 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4290 # blocked as images:
4292 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
4293 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4302 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4303 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4304 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4310 <term>Typical use:</term>
4312 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4317 <term>Effect:</term>
4320 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4327 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4329 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4334 <term>Parameter:</term>
4337 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4346 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4347 foreign User-Agent set with
4348 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4352 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4353 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4354 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4355 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4358 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4359 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4360 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4363 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4364 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4365 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4366 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4367 you should stick to a common language.
4373 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4376 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4377 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4378 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4388 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4389 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4390 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4396 <term>Typical use:</term>
4398 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4403 <term>Effect:</term>
4406 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4413 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4415 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4420 <term>Parameter:</term>
4423 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4432 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4433 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4434 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4435 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4438 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4439 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4440 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4443 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4444 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4445 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4446 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4447 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4451 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4452 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4456 This action will probably be removed in the future,
4457 use server-header filters instead.
4463 <term>Example usage:</term>
4466 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4468 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4469 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4470 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4478 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4479 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4480 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4486 <term>Typical use:</term>
4488 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4493 <term>Effect:</term>
4496 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4503 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4505 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4510 <term>Parameter:</term>
4513 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
4522 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4523 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
4524 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4527 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
4528 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
4529 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
4530 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
4531 subtracting, a positive value adding.
4534 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
4535 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
4536 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
4539 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
4540 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
4541 handle the greater changes.
4544 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4545 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
4546 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
4552 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4555 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
4556 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4557 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4558 +crunch-if-none-match}
4567 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4568 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4569 <title>hide-from-header</title>
4573 <term>Typical use:</term>
4575 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4580 <term>Effect:</term>
4583 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4591 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4593 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4598 <term>Parameter:</term>
4601 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4610 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4611 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4615 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4616 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4617 is actually used by a real person.
4620 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4621 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4627 <term>Example usage:</term>
4630 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4631 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4639 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4640 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4641 <title>hide-referrer</title>
4642 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4645 <term>Typical use:</term>
4647 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4652 <term>Effect:</term>
4655 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4656 or replaces it with a forged one.
4663 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4665 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4670 <term>Parameter:</term>
4674 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
4677 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
4680 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
4683 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4686 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4696 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
4697 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
4698 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
4699 typed in the address directly.
4702 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
4703 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
4704 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
4705 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
4706 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
4710 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
4711 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
4712 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
4713 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
4716 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
4717 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
4718 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
4721 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4722 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4723 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4724 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4725 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4731 <term>Example usage:</term>
4734 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4735 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4743 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4744 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4745 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
4749 <term>Typical use:</term>
4751 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4756 <term>Effect:</term>
4759 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4760 in client requests with the specified value.
4767 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4769 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4774 <term>Parameter:</term>
4777 Any user-defined string.
4787 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
4788 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4789 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
4790 work browser-independently).
4794 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4795 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4796 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4797 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4798 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4799 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4800 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4801 reason in some cases).
4804 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
4805 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
4807 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
4813 <term>Example usage:</term>
4816 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4824 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4825 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4826 <title>limit-connect</title>
4830 <term>Typical use:</term>
4832 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
4837 <term>Effect:</term>
4840 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4847 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4849 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4854 <term>Parameter:</term>
4857 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4858 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4867 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4868 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
4869 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
4870 is desired for some or all destinations.
4873 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4874 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4875 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4876 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4877 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
4880 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
4881 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
4882 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
4888 <term>Example usages:</term>
4890 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4891 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4892 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4894 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
4895 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4896 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4897 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
4898 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
4906 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4907 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-cookie-lifetime">
4908 <title>limit-cookie-lifetime</title>
4912 <term>Typical use:</term>
4914 <para>Limit the lifetime of HTTP cookies to a couple of minutes or hours.</para>
4919 <term>Effect:</term>
4922 Overwrites the expires field in Set-Cookie server headers if it's above the specified limit.
4929 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4931 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4936 <term>Parameter:</term>
4939 The lifetime limit in minutes, or 0.
4948 This action reduces the lifetime of HTTP cookies coming from the
4949 server to the specified number of minutes, starting from the time
4950 the cookie passes Privoxy.
4953 Cookies with a lifetime below the limit are not modified.
4954 The lifetime of session cookies is set to the specified limit.
4957 The effect of this action depends on the server.
4960 In case of servers which refresh their cookies with each response
4961 (or at least frequently), the lifetime limit set by this action
4963 Thus, a session associated with the cookie continues to work with
4964 this action enabled, as long as a new request is made before the
4965 last limit set is reached.
4968 However, some servers send their cookies once, with a lifetime of several
4969 years (the year 2037 is a popular choice), and do not refresh them
4970 until a certain event in the future, for example the user logging out.
4971 In this case this action may limit the absolute lifetime of the session,
4972 even if requests are made frequently.
4975 If the parameter is <quote>0</quote>, this action behaves like
4976 <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal>.
4982 <term>Example usages:</term>
4985 <screen>+limit-cookie-lifetime{60}
4993 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4994 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
4995 <title>prevent-compression</title>
4999 <term>Typical use:</term>
5002 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5003 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5009 <term>Effect:</term>
5012 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5019 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5021 <para>Boolean.</para>
5026 <term>Parameter:</term>
5038 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5039 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5040 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5041 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5042 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5045 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5046 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5047 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5048 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5051 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5052 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5056 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5057 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5058 predefined action settings.
5061 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5062 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5063 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5064 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5065 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5071 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5075 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5077 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5078 # Match only these sites
5083 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5085 { +prevent-compression }
5088 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5090 { -prevent-compression }
5091 .compusa.com/</screen>
5100 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5101 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5102 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5108 <term>Typical use:</term>
5110 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5115 <term>Effect:</term>
5118 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5125 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5127 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5132 <term>Parameter:</term>
5135 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5136 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5145 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5146 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5147 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5148 version of the page.
5151 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5152 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5153 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5154 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5155 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5156 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5159 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5160 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5161 this option together with
5162 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5163 to further customize your random range.
5166 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5167 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5168 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5169 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5170 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5171 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5175 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5176 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5182 <term>Example usage:</term>
5185 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5186 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5187 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5188 +crunch-if-none-match}
5197 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5198 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5199 <title>redirect</title>
5205 <term>Typical use:</term>
5208 Redirect requests to other sites.
5214 <term>Effect:</term>
5217 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5218 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5225 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5227 <para>Parameterized</para>
5232 <term>Parameter:</term>
5235 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5244 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5245 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5246 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5247 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5250 The syntax for pcrs commands is documented in the
5251 <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link> section.
5254 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5255 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5256 It can be combined with
5257 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5258 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5261 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5262 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5263 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5266 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
5267 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
5273 <term>Example usages:</term>
5276 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5277 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5278 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5280 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5281 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5282 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5285 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5286 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5287 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5288 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5289 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
5291 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
5292 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
5295 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
5296 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
5297 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
5299 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
5300 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
5301 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
5302 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
5311 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5312 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5313 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5317 <term>Typical use:</term>
5320 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5326 <term>Effect:</term>
5329 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5330 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5337 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5339 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5344 <term>Parameter:</term>
5347 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5348 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5357 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5358 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5359 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5360 You can do that by using tags though.
5363 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5364 and use their output as input.
5367 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5368 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5375 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5379 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5380 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5382 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5383 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5393 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5394 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5395 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5399 <term>Typical use:</term>
5402 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5408 <term>Effect:</term>
5411 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5412 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5420 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5422 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5427 <term>Parameter:</term>
5430 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5431 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5440 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5441 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5445 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5446 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5447 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5448 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5449 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5452 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5453 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5460 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5464 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5465 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5476 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5477 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5478 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5482 <term>Typical use:</term>
5485 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5486 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5492 <term>Effect:</term>
5495 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5496 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5497 forget them in between sessions.
5504 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5506 <para>Boolean.</para>
5511 <term>Parameter:</term>
5523 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5524 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5525 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5528 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5529 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5530 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5531 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5532 sites, and is the recommended setting.
5535 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
5536 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
5537 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
5538 will be plainly killed.
5541 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
5542 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
5545 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
5546 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
5547 These would have to be removed manually.
5550 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
5551 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
5552 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
5553 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
5559 <term>Example usage:</term>
5562 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
5570 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5571 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
5572 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
5576 <term>Typical use:</term>
5578 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
5583 <term>Effect:</term>
5586 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
5587 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
5588 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
5589 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
5590 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
5591 sent as a replacement.
5598 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5600 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5605 <term>Parameter:</term>
5610 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
5611 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
5616 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
5617 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
5618 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
5619 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
5624 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
5625 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
5626 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
5627 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
5630 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
5631 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
5632 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
5633 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
5634 it over and over again.
5645 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
5646 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
5647 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
5650 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
5651 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
5652 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
5658 <term>Example usage:</term>
5664 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
5667 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
5670 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
5673 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
5676 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
5684 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5686 <title>Summary</title>
5688 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
5689 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
5690 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
5691 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
5692 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
5693 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
5699 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5700 <sect2 id="aliases">
5701 <title>Aliases</title>
5703 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
5704 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
5705 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
5706 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
5708 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
5709 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
5710 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
5711 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
5712 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
5716 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
5717 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
5718 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
5719 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
5723 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
5724 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
5725 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
5726 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
5727 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
5728 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
5729 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
5732 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
5733 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
5734 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
5735 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
5736 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
5741 Now let's define some aliases...
5746 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
5748 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
5749 # must be at the top of the actions file!
5753 # These aliases just save typing later:
5754 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5756 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5757 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5758 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
5759 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5761 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5762 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5764 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
5766 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
5768 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
5770 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
5771 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
5775 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
5776 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
5777 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
5782 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
5783 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
5786 .office.microsoft.com
5787 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5788 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
5792 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
5796 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5799 # These shops require pop-ups:
5801 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
5803 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
5807 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
5808 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
5809 in order to function properly.
5815 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5816 <sect2 id="act-examples">
5817 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
5819 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
5820 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
5821 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
5822 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
5823 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
5824 example <filename>match-all.action</filename>, <filename>default.action</filename>
5825 and <filename>user.action</filename> file and see how all these pieces come together:
5829 <title>match-all.action</title>
5831 Remember <emphasis>all actions are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>,
5832 so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want.
5836 While the <filename>match-all.action</filename> file only contains a
5837 single section, it is probably the most important one. It has only one
5838 pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5839 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the set of
5840 actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5841 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5842 wholly overridden by other actions files like <filename>default.action</filename>
5843 and <filename>user.action</filename>, but it will still be largely responsible
5844 for your overall browsing experience.
5848 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5849 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
5850 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5851 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5852 multiple lines with line continuation.
5858 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
5859 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5860 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5867 The default behavior is now set.
5872 <title>default.action</title>
5875 If you aren't a developer, there's no need for you to edit the
5876 <filename>default.action</filename> file. It is maintained by
5877 the &my-app; developers and if you disagree with some of the
5878 sections, you should overrule them in your <filename>user.action</filename>.
5882 Understanding the <filename>default.action</filename> file can
5883 help you with your <filename>user.action</filename>, though.
5887 The first section in this file is a special section for internal use
5888 that prevents older &my-app; versions from reading the file:
5893 ##########################################################################
5894 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5895 ##########################################################################
5897 for-privoxy-version=3.0.11</screen>
5901 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5902 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5903 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5908 ##########################################################################
5910 ##########################################################################
5913 # These aliases just save typing later:
5914 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5916 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5917 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5918 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
5919 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5921 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5922 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5924 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link>
5925 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
5929 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
5930 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
5931 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
5932 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
5933 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
5934 of actions explicitly:
5939 ##########################################################################
5940 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
5941 ##########################################################################
5943 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
5946 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
5947 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5948 mail.google.com</screen>
5952 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
5953 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
5954 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
5963 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5965 .scan.co.uk</screen>
5969 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
5970 action, which may have been enabled in <filename>match-all.action</filename>,
5971 breaks some sites. So disable it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
5976 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
5980 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
5981 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
5982 .nytimes.com</screen>
5986 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
5987 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
5988 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
5989 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
5990 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
5991 would feed the advertisers information about you. We can mark any
5992 URL as an image with the <literal><link
5993 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
5994 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6000 ##########################################################################
6002 ##########################################################################
6004 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6005 # blocked further down this file:
6007 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6008 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6012 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6013 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6014 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6015 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6016 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6017 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6018 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6019 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6020 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6021 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6022 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6023 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6028 # Known ad generators:
6033 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6034 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6035 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6041 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6042 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6043 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6044 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6045 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6046 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6047 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6048 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6049 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6052 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6053 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6054 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6055 to keep the example short:
6060 ##########################################################################
6061 # Block these fine banners:
6062 ##########################################################################
6063 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
6071 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6072 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6074 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6076 .hitbox.com</screen>
6080 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6081 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6082 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6083 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6086 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6087 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6088 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6089 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6090 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6091 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6095 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6096 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6097 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6098 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6099 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6100 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6101 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6102 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6103 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6104 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6109 ##########################################################################
6110 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6111 ##########################################################################
6115 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6116 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6117 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6118 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6119 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6120 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6121 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6129 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6130 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6134 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6135 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6136 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6137 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6138 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6143 # Don't filter code!
6145 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6150 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6154 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6155 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6160 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6163 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6164 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6165 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6166 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6167 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6168 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6169 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6170 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6171 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6172 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6173 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6174 to install updated versions from time to time.
6178 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6179 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6183 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6187 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6191 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6192 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6193 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6198 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6199 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6203 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6204 # be self explanatory.
6206 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6207 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6208 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6209 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
6210 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
6211 -block-as-image = -block
6213 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6214 # certain types of sites:
6216 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
6217 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6219 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6221 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6223 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6224 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6225 handle-as-text = -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> +-<link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{text/plain}</link> +-<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link></screen>
6230 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6231 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6232 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6233 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6234 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6235 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6240 { allow-all-cookies }
6244 .redhat.com</screen>
6248 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6253 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6254 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6258 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6263 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6264 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6269 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6270 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6272 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6276 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6277 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6278 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6279 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6280 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6281 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6282 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6283 in default.action anyway:
6288 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
6289 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6290 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6294 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6295 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6296 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6297 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6298 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6300 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6301 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6302 browser. Use cautiously.
6311 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6315 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6316 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6317 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6318 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6319 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6320 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6321 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6322 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6323 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6331 .mybank.com</screen>
6335 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6336 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6337 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6338 update-safe config, once and for all:
6343 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6344 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6348 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6349 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6350 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6351 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6352 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6356 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6357 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6358 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6359 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6371 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6372 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6373 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6374 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6378 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6379 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6380 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6381 it should I choose to.
6391 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6392 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6393 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6394 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6395 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6396 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6402 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6403 / # ALL sites</screen>
6409 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6413 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6415 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6417 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6418 <title>Filter Files</title>
6421 On-the-fly text substitutions need
6422 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6423 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
6427 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
6428 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
6429 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
6430 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
6431 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
6432 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
6433 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
6437 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
6438 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
6440 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
6441 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
6442 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
6443 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
6444 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
6449 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
6450 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6451 as supplied by the developers are located in
6452 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6453 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6454 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6458 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
6459 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6460 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6461 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6462 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6463 or just to have fun.
6467 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
6468 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
6469 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
6470 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
6471 to also filter other content.
6475 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6476 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6477 and, of course, regular expressions.
6481 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6482 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6483 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
6484 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
6485 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
6486 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6487 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6488 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6489 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6490 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6491 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6492 user interface</ulink>.
6496 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6497 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6498 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6499 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6503 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
6504 type, the filter name and the filter description.
6505 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6510 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6514 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6515 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6516 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6517 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6518 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6519 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6520 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6521 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6526 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6527 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6528 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6529 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6531 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6532 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6533 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
6534 expressions</ulink> in general.
6535 The below examples might also help to get you started.
6539 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6541 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
6543 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
6544 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
6545 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
6550 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
6554 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
6555 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
6556 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
6557 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
6561 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6565 Our complete filter now looks like this:
6568 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
6569 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6573 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
6574 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
6575 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
6581 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
6583 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
6585 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
6589 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
6590 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
6591 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
6592 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
6596 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
6597 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
6598 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
6599 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
6600 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
6604 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
6605 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
6606 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
6607 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
6608 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
6609 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
6610 in the page (and appear in that order).
6614 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
6615 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
6616 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
6617 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
6618 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
6622 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
6623 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
6624 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
6625 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
6626 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
6627 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
6628 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
6629 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
6630 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
6631 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
6632 substitution is global.
6636 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
6637 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
6638 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
6639 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
6640 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
6644 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
6645 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
6646 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
6647 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
6648 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
6649 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
6650 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
6651 Business!"</literal>.
6655 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
6656 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
6657 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
6658 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
6659 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
6660 information anymore.
6664 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
6665 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
6670 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
6672 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
6676 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
6677 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
6678 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
6679 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
6680 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
6681 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
6682 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
6683 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
6684 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
6688 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
6689 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
6690 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
6691 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
6692 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
6693 you move your mouse over links.
6698 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
6700 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
6705 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
6706 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
6707 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
6708 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
6709 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
6710 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
6711 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
6712 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
6713 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
6714 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
6719 The last example is from the fun department:
6724 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
6726 # Spice the daily news:
6728 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
6732 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
6733 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
6734 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
6735 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
6736 still replacing the word everywhere else.
6741 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
6743 s* industry[ -]leading \
6745 | customer[ -]focused \
6746 | market[ -]driven \
6747 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
6748 | high[ -]performance \
6749 | solutions[ -]based \
6753 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
6758 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
6759 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
6767 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6769 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
6773 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
6774 keep these listings in sync.
6779 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
6780 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
6785 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6788 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
6793 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
6794 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
6795 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
6800 removes the bindings to the DOM's
6801 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
6802 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
6803 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
6808 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
6809 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
6815 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
6816 rely heavily on JavaScript.
6822 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
6825 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
6826 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
6827 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
6830 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
6831 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
6838 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6841 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
6844 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
6845 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
6846 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
6847 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
6853 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
6856 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
6858 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
6859 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
6860 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
6861 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
6864 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
6865 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
6866 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
6867 use the cookie crunch actions.
6873 <term><emphasis>refresh-tags</emphasis></term>
6876 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
6877 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
6878 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
6885 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
6888 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
6889 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
6890 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
6891 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
6894 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
6895 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
6896 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
6897 restoring the function afterward.
6900 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
6901 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
6902 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
6908 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
6911 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
6912 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
6913 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
6914 usage. Use with caution.
6920 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
6923 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
6924 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
6925 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
6931 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
6934 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
6935 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
6936 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
6939 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
6940 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
6943 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
6944 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
6950 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
6953 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
6954 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
6955 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
6961 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
6964 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
6965 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
6966 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
6967 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
6968 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
6969 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
6970 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
6973 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
6979 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
6982 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
6983 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
6984 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
6985 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
6988 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
6994 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
6997 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
6998 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
6999 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7005 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7008 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7009 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7010 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7011 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7012 small to show their whole content.
7015 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7022 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7025 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7026 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7027 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7030 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7031 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7032 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7033 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7034 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7037 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7038 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7039 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7046 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7049 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7050 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7058 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7061 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7062 prevents saving, is disabled.
7068 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7071 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7072 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7078 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7081 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7082 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7088 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7091 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7092 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7095 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7096 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7102 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7105 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7106 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7109 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7110 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7111 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7112 anything regarding this filter.
7118 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7121 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7122 and the toolbar advertisement.
7128 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7131 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7132 a width limitation as well.
7138 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7141 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7142 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7148 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7151 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7154 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7155 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7156 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7157 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7163 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7166 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7172 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7175 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7181 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7184 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7185 anchor and area HTML tags.
7191 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7194 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7195 found in Host and Referer headers.
7198 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7199 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7200 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7201 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7204 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7205 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7206 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7207 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7210 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7211 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7212 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7215 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7216 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7217 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7218 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7219 the request is coming from.
7226 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7240 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7244 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7246 <sect1 id="templates">
7247 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7249 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7250 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7251 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7252 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7254 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7255 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7256 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7261 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7262 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7264 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7268 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7269 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7270 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7271 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7272 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7273 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7274 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7278 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7279 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7283 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7284 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7285 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7286 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7287 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7291 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7292 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7293 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7294 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7295 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7300 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7302 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7304 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7308 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7309 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7310 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7314 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7318 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7319 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7324 All templates refer to a style located at
7325 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7326 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7327 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7328 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7333 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7337 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7339 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7342 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7344 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7348 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7351 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7352 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7354 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7356 <!-- end copyright -->
7359 <application>Privoxy</application> is free software; you can
7360 redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
7361 <citetitle>GNU General Public License</citetitle>, version 2,
7362 as published by the Free Software Foundation and included in
7366 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7367 <sect2 id="license"><title>License</title>
7369 <screen><![ RCDATA [ &GPLv2; ]]></screen>
7373 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7376 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7378 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7379 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7381 <!-- end history -->
7384 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7385 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7387 <!-- end authors -->
7392 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7395 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7396 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7397 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7399 <!-- end seealso -->
7404 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7405 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7408 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7410 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7412 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7413 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7414 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7415 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7418 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7420 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7424 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7425 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7426 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7427 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7431 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7432 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7433 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7434 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7435 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7436 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7437 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7438 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7442 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7443 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7444 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7445 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7446 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7447 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7448 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7449 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7453 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7454 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7455 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7456 and then some examples:
7461 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7462 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7464 </simplelist></para>
7468 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7471 </simplelist></para>
7475 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7478 </simplelist></para>
7482 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7485 </simplelist></para>
7489 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7490 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7491 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7492 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7493 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7494 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7496 </simplelist></para>
7500 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7501 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7502 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7503 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7505 </simplelist></para>
7509 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7510 or multiple sub-expressions.
7512 </simplelist></para>
7516 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7517 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7518 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7519 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7520 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7521 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7523 </simplelist></para>
7526 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7527 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7528 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7529 be more illuminating:
7533 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7534 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7535 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7536 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7537 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7538 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7539 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7540 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7541 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7542 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
7543 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
7544 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
7545 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
7546 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
7551 And now something a little more complex:
7555 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
7556 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
7557 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
7558 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
7559 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
7560 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
7561 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
7566 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
7567 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
7568 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
7569 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
7570 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
7571 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
7572 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
7573 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
7574 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
7575 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
7576 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
7577 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
7578 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
7579 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
7580 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
7581 changing our regular expression to:
7582 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
7587 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
7588 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
7589 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
7590 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
7591 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
7592 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
7593 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
7594 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
7595 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
7596 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
7597 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
7598 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
7599 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
7600 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
7601 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
7602 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
7603 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
7604 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
7605 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
7606 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
7607 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
7608 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
7609 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
7610 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
7611 in the expression anywhere).
7615 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
7616 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
7617 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
7618 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
7619 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
7624 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
7625 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
7629 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
7630 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
7635 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7638 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7640 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
7643 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
7644 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
7645 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
7646 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
7647 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
7648 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
7649 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
7655 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
7656 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
7657 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
7658 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
7671 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
7675 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
7676 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
7677 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
7683 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
7684 editing of actions files:
7688 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
7695 Show the source code version numbers:
7699 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
7706 Show the browser's request headers:
7710 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
7717 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
7721 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
7728 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
7729 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
7730 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
7735 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
7739 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
7743 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
7748 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
7757 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
7761 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
7762 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
7764 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
7765 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7766 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
7767 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
7768 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
7769 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
7772 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
7773 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
7774 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
7775 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
7776 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
7777 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
7786 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
7793 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
7800 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
7807 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
7813 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
7819 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
7826 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
7827 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
7828 have more information about bookmarklets.
7837 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7839 <title>Chain of Events</title>
7841 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7842 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
7843 page is requested by your browser:
7850 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
7851 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
7852 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
7858 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
7859 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
7864 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
7866 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
7867 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
7868 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
7870 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
7871 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
7872 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
7873 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
7874 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
7875 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
7876 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
7881 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
7882 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
7887 If the URL pattern matches the <link
7888 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
7889 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
7894 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
7895 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
7896 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
7897 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
7903 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
7909 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
7910 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
7911 filtered as determined by the
7912 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
7913 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
7914 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
7920 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7922 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7923 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
7924 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
7925 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
7926 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
7927 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
7928 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
7929 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
7930 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
7933 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7935 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7936 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
7937 to the client browser as it becomes available.
7942 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
7943 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
7944 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
7945 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
7946 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
7947 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
7948 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
7949 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
7950 differing set of actions is triggered.
7957 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
7958 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
7959 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
7965 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7966 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
7967 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
7970 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
7971 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
7972 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
7973 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
7974 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
7975 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
7976 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
7977 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
7978 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
7983 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
7984 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
7985 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
7986 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
7987 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
7988 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
7989 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
7992 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
7993 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
7994 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
7995 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
7996 configuration issue.
8000 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8001 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8002 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8003 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8007 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8008 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8009 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8010 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8011 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8012 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8013 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8014 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8015 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8016 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8017 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8018 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8019 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8024 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8025 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8026 configuration may vary):
8031 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8033 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8035 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8036 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8037 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8038 +filter {refresh-tags}
8039 +filter {img-reorder}
8040 +filter {banners-by-size}
8042 +filter {jumping-windows}
8043 +filter {ie-exploits}
8044 +hide-from-header {block}
8045 +hide-referrer {forge}
8046 +session-cookies-only
8047 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8050 { -session-cookies-only }
8056 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8057 (no matches in this file)
8062 This is telling us how we have defined our
8063 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8064 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8065 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8066 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8067 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8068 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8069 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8073 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8074 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8075 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8076 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8077 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8078 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8082 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8083 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8084 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8085 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8086 cookie setting, which was for <link
8087 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8088 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8089 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8090 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8091 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8092 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8093 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8094 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8095 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8096 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8097 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8098 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8099 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8103 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8104 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8105 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8106 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8107 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8108 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8112 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8113 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8114 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8125 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8126 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8127 -content-type-overwrite
8128 -crunch-client-header
8129 -crunch-if-none-match
8130 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8131 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8132 -crunch-server-header
8133 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8134 -downgrade-http-version
8137 -filter {content-cookies}
8138 -filter {all-popups}
8139 -filter {banners-by-link}
8140 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8141 -filter {frameset-borders}
8142 -filter {demoronizer}
8143 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8144 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8146 -filter {crude-parental}
8147 -filter {site-specifics}
8148 -filter {js-annoyances}
8149 -filter {html-annoyances}
8150 +filter {refresh-tags}
8151 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8152 +filter {img-reorder}
8153 +filter {banners-by-size}
8155 +filter {jumping-windows}
8156 +filter {ie-exploits}
8163 -handle-as-empty-document
8165 -hide-accept-language
8166 -hide-content-disposition
8167 +hide-from-header {block}
8168 -hide-if-modified-since
8169 +hide-referrer {forge}
8172 -overwrite-last-modified
8173 -prevent-compression
8175 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8176 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8177 -session-cookies-only
8178 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
8182 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8183 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8184 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8185 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8189 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8195 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
8198 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
8201 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
8202 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8207 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8208 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
8209 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
8210 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8211 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8212 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8213 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8218 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8219 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8220 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8221 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8222 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8223 is done here -- as both a <link
8224 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
8225 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8226 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8227 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8228 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8232 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8233 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8239 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8241 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8245 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8246 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8247 -content-type-overwrite
8248 -crunch-client-header
8249 -crunch-if-none-match
8250 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8251 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8252 -crunch-server-header
8254 -downgrade-http-version
8255 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8257 -filter {content-cookies}
8258 -filter {all-popups}
8259 -filter {banners-by-link}
8260 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8261 -filter {frameset-borders}
8262 -filter {demoronizer}
8263 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8264 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8266 -filter {crude-parental}
8267 -filter {site-specifics}
8268 -filter {js-annoyances}
8269 -filter {html-annoyances}
8270 +filter {refresh-tags}
8271 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8272 +filter {img-reorder}
8273 +filter {banners-by-size}
8275 +filter {jumping-windows}
8276 +filter {ie-exploits}
8283 -handle-as-empty-document
8285 -hide-accept-language
8286 -hide-content-disposition
8287 +hide-from-header{block}
8288 +hide-referer{forge}
8290 -overwrite-last-modified
8291 +prevent-compression
8293 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8294 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8295 +session-cookies-only
8296 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
8299 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8305 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8306 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8307 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8308 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8309 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8310 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8311 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8312 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8313 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8314 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8315 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8327 Now the page displays ;-)
8328 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8329 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8330 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8334 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8341 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8347 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8348 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8349 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8350 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8351 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8352 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8353 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8354 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8355 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8363 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8371 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8372 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8373 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8381 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8389 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8390 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8391 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8392 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8393 automatically in the scope of the action.
8397 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8398 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8400 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8401 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8405 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8406 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8407 last resort for problem sites.
8413 # Handle with care: easy to break
8415 mybank.example.com</screen>
8420 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8421 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8422 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
8423 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
8427 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8428 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8437 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8438 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8439 Public License as published by the Free Software
8440 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8441 your option) any later version.
8443 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8444 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8445 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8446 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8447 License for more details.
8449 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8450 this file. If not, you can view it at
8451 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8452 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8453 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,