man:privoxy(8)

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PRIVOXY(8)                                                          PRIVOXY(8)



NAME
       privoxy — Privacy Enhancing Proxy

SYNOPSIS
       privoxy  [--help  ]  [--version  ]  [--no-daemon ] [--pidfile pidfile ]
       [--user user[.group] ] [--chroot ] [configfile ]


OPTIONS
       Privoxy may be invoked with the following command line options:

       --help Print brief usage info and exit.

       --version
              Print version info and exit.

       --no-daemon
              Don't  become  a daemon, i.e.  don't  fork  and  become  process
              group leader, don't detach from controlling tty, and do all log-
              ging there.

       --pidfile pidfile
              On startup, write the process ID to pidfile.  Delete the pidfile
              on  exit.  Failure to create or delete the pidfile is non-fatal.
              If no --pidfile option is given, no PID file will be used.

       --user user[.group]
              After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user  ID  of
              user  and  the  GID  of group, or, if the optional group was not
              given, the default group of user. Exit if the privileges are not
              sufficient to do so.

       --chroot
              Before  changing  to  the  user  ID  given in the --user option,
              chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel  pre-
              tend  to  the  Privoxy  process  that  the directory tree starts
              there. If set up carefully, this can limit the impact of  possi-
              ble  vulnerabilities  in  Privoxy to the files contained in that
              hierarchy.

       If the configfile is not specified  on   the   command   line,  Privoxy
       will   look  for  a  file named config in the current directory . If no
       configfile is found, Privoxy will fail to start.

DESCRIPTION
       Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering  capabilities  for  pro-
       tecting privacy, modifying web page data, managing cookies, controlling
       access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet
       junk.  Privoxy  has a very flexible configuration and can be customized
       to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application  for  both
       stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.

       Privoxy is based on Internet Junkbuster (tm).

INSTALLATION AND USAGE
       Browsers  must  be  individually  configured  to  use Privoxy as a HTTP
       proxy.  The default setting is  for  localhost,  on port  8118 (config-
       urable in the main config file).  To set the HTTP proxy in Netscape and
       Mozilla, go through:  Edit; Preferences;   Advanced;  Proxies;   Manual
       Proxy Configuration; View.

       For  Firefox, go through: Tools; Options; General; Connection Settings;
       Manual Proxy Configuration.

       For Internet Explorer, go through: Tools; Internet Properties;  Connec-
       tions; LAN Settings.

       The Secure (SSL) Proxy should also be set to the same values, otherwise
       https: URLs will not be proxied. Note: Privoxy can only proxy HTTP  and
       HTTPS  traffic.  Do  not  try  it  with  FTP or other protocols.  HTTPS
       presents some limitations, and not all features will  work  with  HTTPS
       connections.

       For other browsers, check the documentation.

CONFIGURATION
       Privoxy  can  be  configured  with the various configuration files. The
       default  configuration   files   are:   config,   default.filter,   and
       default.action.  user.action  should be used for locally defined excep-
       tions to the default  rules  of  default.action,  and  user.filter  for
       locally  defined  filters. These are well commented.  On Unix and Unix-
       like systems, these are located in /etc/privoxy/ by default.

       Privoxy uses the concept of actions in order  to  manipulate  the  data
       stream between the browser and remote sites.  There are various actions
       available with specific functions  for  such  things  as  blocking  web
       sites, managing cookies, etc. These actions can be invoked individually
       or combined, and used against individual URLs, or groups of  URLs  that
       can  be  defined using wildcards and regular expressions. The result is
       that the user has greatly enhanced control and freedom.

       The actions list (ad blocks, etc) can also be configured with your  web
       browser at http://config.privoxy.org/.  Privoxy's configuration parame-
       ters  can also  be viewed at the same page. In addition, Privoxy can be
       toggled  on/off.  This is an internal page, and does not require Inter-
       net access.

       See the User Manual for a detailed explanation of installation, general
       usage,  all configuration options, new features and notes on upgrading.

SAMPLE CONFIGURATION
        A brief example of what a  simple  default.action  configuration  might
        look like:
 
         # Define a few useful custom aliases for later use
         {{alias}}
 
         # Useful aliases that combine more than one action
         +crunch-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
         -crunch-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
         +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
 
         # Fragile sites should have the minimum changes
         fragile     = -block -deanimate-gifs -fast-redirects -filter \
                       -hide-referer -prevent-cookies -kill-popups
 
         ## Turn some actions on ################################
         ## NOTE: Actions are off by default, unless explictily turned on
         ## otherwise with the '+' operator.
 
        { \
        -add-header \
        -block \
        -content-type-overwrite \
        -crunch-client-header \
        -crunch-if-none-match \
        -crunch-outgoing-cookies \
        -crunch-incoming-cookies \
        -crunch-server-header \
        +deanimate-gifs{last} \
        -downgrade-http-version \
        -fast-redirects \
        -filter{js-annoyances} \
        -filter{js-events} \
        -filter{html-annoyances} \
        -filter{content-cookies} \
        +filter{refresh-tags} \
        -filter{unsolicited-popups} \
        -filter{all-popups} \
        -filter{img-reorder} \
        -filter{banners-by-size} \
        -filter{banners-by-link} \
        +filter{webbugs} \
        -filter{tiny-textforms} \
        +filter{jumping-windows} \
        -filter{frameset-borders} \
        -filter{demoronizer} \
        -filter{shockwave-flash} \
        -filter{quicktime-kioskmode} \
        -filter{fun} \
        -filter{crude-parental} \
        +filter{ie-exploits} \
        -filter{site-specifics} \
        -filter{google} \
        -filter{yahoo} \
        -filter{msn} \
        -filter{blogspot} \
        -filter{xml-to-html} \
        -filter{html-to-xml} \
        -filter{no-ping} \
        -filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} \
        -filter-client-headers \
        -filter-server-headers \
        -force-text-mode \
        -handle-as-empty-document
        -handle-as-image \
        -hide-accept-language \
        -hide-content-disposition \
        -hide-if-modified-since \
        +hide-forwarded-for-headers \
        +hide-from-header{block} \
        +hide-referrer{forge} \
        -hide-user-agent \
        -inspect-jpegs \
        -kill-popups \
        -limit-connect \
        -overwrite-last-modified \
        -redirect \
        +prevent-compression \
        -send-vanilla-wafer \
        -send-wafer \
        +session-cookies-only \
        +set-image-blocker{pattern} \
        -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks \
        }
        / # '/' Match *all* URL patterns
 
 
         # Block all URLs that match these patterns
         { +block }
          ad.
          ad[sv].
          .*ads.
          banner?.
          /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
          .hitbox.com
          media./.*(ads|banner)
 
         # Block, and treat these URL patterns as if they were 'images'.
         # We would expect these to be ads.
         { +block-as-image }
          .ad.doubleclick.net
          .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
          ad.*.doubleclick.net
 
         # Make exceptions for these harmless ones that would be
         # caught by our +block patterns just above.
         { -block }
          adsl.
          adobe.
          advice.
          .*downloads.
          # uploads or downloads
          /.*loads
 
        Then  for  a  user.action,  we would put local, narrowly defined excep-
        tions:
 
         # Re-define aliases as needed here
         {{alias}}
 
         # Useful aliases
         -crunch-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
 
         # Set personal exceptions to the policies in default.action #######
 
         # Sites where we want persistent cookies, so allow *all* cookies
         { -crunch-cookies -session-cookies-only }
          .redhat.com
          .sun.com
          .msdn.microsoft.com
 
         # These sites breaks easily. Use our "fragile" alias here.
         { fragile }
          .forbes.com
          mybank.example.com
 
         # Replace example.com's style sheet with one of my choosing
         { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
          example.com/stylesheet.css
 
        See the comments in the configuration files  themselves,  or  the  User
        Manual  for  full  explanations  of the above syntax, and other Privoxy
        configuration options.
 
 FILES
        /usr/sbin/privoxy
        /etc/privoxy/config
        /etc/privoxy/default.action
        /etc/privoxy/standard.action
        /etc/privoxy/user.action
        /etc/privoxy/default.filter
        /etc/privoxy/user.filter
        /etc/privoxy/trust
        /etc/privoxy/templates/*
        /var/log/privoxy/logfile

       Various other files should be included, but may vary depending on plat-
       form  and  build  configuration.  Additional  documentation  should  be
       included in the local documentation directory.

SIGNALS
       Privoxy terminates on the SIGINT,  SIGTERM  and  SIGABRT  signals.  Log
       rotation  scripts  may  cause  a re-opening of the logfile by sending a
       SIGHUP to Privoxy. Note that unlike other daemons,   Privoxy  does  not
       need  to  be  made  aware  of  config file changes by SIGHUP -- it will
       detect them automatically.

NOTES
       Please see the User Manual on how to contact the developers,  for  fea-
       ture requests, reporting problems, and other questions.

SEE ALSO
        Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
 
 
        http://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.
 
        http://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.
 
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/,  the  Project Page for Privoxy
        on SourceForge.
 
        http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface. Privoxy  must
        be running for this to work. Shortcut: http://p.p/
 
        http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288,  to  submit
        ``misses'' and other configuration related suggestions to the  develop-
        ers.
 
        http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explanation how cook-
        ies are used to track web users.
 
        http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html, the original Internet  Junkbuster.
 
        http://privacy.net/,  a useful site to check what information about you
        is leaked while you browse the web.
 
        http://www.squid-cache.org/, a very popular  caching  proxy,  which  is
        often used together with Privoxy.
 
        http://tor.eff.org/,  Tor can help anonymize web browsing, web publish-
        ing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications.
 
        http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.
 
 DEVELOPMENT TEAM
        Fabian Keil, developer
        David Schmidt, developer

        Hal Burgiss
        Ian Cummings
        Roland Rosenfeld

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
   COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (C)  2001  -  2006  by  Privoxy  Developers

       Some source code is based on  code  Copyright  (C)  1997  by  Anonymous
       Coders  and Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under the GNU General Public
       License.

   LICENSE
       Privoxy is free software; you can  redistribute  it  and/or  modify  it
       under  the  terms  of  the  GNU  General  Public License, version 2, as
       published by the Free Software Foundation.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it  will  be  useful,  but
       WITHOUT  ANY  WARRANTY;  without  even  the  implied  warranty  of MER-
       CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU  General
       Public License for more details, which is available from the Free Soft-
       ware Foundation, Inc, 51  Franklin  Street,  Fifth  Floor,  Boston,  MA
       02110-1301, USA

       You  should  have  received  a  copy of the  GNU General Public License
       along with this program; if not, write to the   Free  Software  Founda-
       tion, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA



Privoxy 3.0.6                  23 December 2006                     PRIVOXY(8)