privoxy - Privacy Enhancing Proxy

privoxy [--help ] [--version ] [--no-daemon ] [--pidfile pidfile ] [--user user[.group] ] [--chroot ] [configfile ] (UNIX)

privoxy.exe [configfile ] (Windows)

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 logging 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 pretend to the Privoxy process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit the impact of possible 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 (except on Win32 where it will try config.txt). If no configfile is found, Privoxy will fail to start.

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

Privoxy is based on Internet Junkbuster (tm).

Browsers must be individually configured to use Privoxy as a HTTP proxy. The default setting is for localhost, on port 8118 (configurable 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 Internet Explorer, go through: Tools; Internet Properties; Connections; 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.

For other browsers, check the documentation.

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 exceptions to the default rules of default.action These are all well commented. On Unix and Unix-like systems, these are located in /etc/privoxy/ by default. On Windows, OS/2 and AmigaOS, these files are in the same directory as the Privoxy executable.

The name and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions. In fact, the configuration itself is changed and much more sophisticated. See the user-manual for a complete explanation of all configuration options and general usage, and notes for upgrading from Junkbuster and earlier Privoxy versions.

The actions list (ad blocks, etc) can also be configured with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/. Privoxy's configuration parameters 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 Internet access.

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 +crunch-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies -crunch-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies +imageblock = +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 ################################ { \ -add-header \ -block \ +deanimate-gifs{last} \ -downgrade-http-version \ -fast-redirects \ +filter{html-annoyances} \ +filter{js-annoyances} \ +filter{content-cookies} \ +filter{webbugs} \ +filter{banners-by-size} \ +hide-forwarded-for-headers \ +hide-from-header{block} \ +hide-referrer{forge} \ -hide-user-agent \ -handle-as-image \ +set-image-blocker{pattern} \ -limit-connect \ +prevent-compression \ +session-cookies-only \ -crunch-cookies \ -kill-popups \ } / # '/' Matches *all* URL patterns # Block, and treat these URL patterns as if they were 'images'. # We would expect these to be ads. {+imageblock} .ad.doubleclick.net .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$ ad.*.doubleclick.net

# Block any URLs that match these patterns {+block} ad*. .*ads. banner?. /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?) .hitbox.com

# Make exceptions for these harmless ones that would be # caught by our +block patterns just above. {-block} adsl. advice. .*downloads.

Then for a user.action, we would put local, narrowly defined exceptions:

 # 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 # This site breaks easily. {-block -fast-redirects} .forbes.com

See the comments in the configuration files themselves, or the user-manual for explanations of the above syntax, and other Privoxy configuration options.

 
 /usr/sbin/privoxy
 /etc/privoxy/config
 /etc/privoxy/default.action
 /etc/privoxy/standard.action
 /etc/privoxy/user.action
 /etc/privoxy/default.filter
 /etc/privoxy/trust
 /etc/privoxy/templates/*
 /var/log/privoxy/logfile

Various other files should be included, but may vary depending on platform and build configuration. More documentation should be included in the local documentation directory.

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.

Please see the User Manual on how to contact the developers for feature requests, reporting problems, and other questions.

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://www.privoxy.org/actions/, to submit ``misses'' to the developers.

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ijbswa/contrib/, cool and fun ideas from Privoxy users.

http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explanation how cookies are used to track web users.

http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html, the original Internet Junkbuster.

http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/, Stefan Waldherr's version of Junkbuster, from which Privoxy was derived.

http://privacy.net/analyze/, a useful site to check what information about you is leaked while you browse the web.

http://www.squid-cache.org/, a very popular caching proxy, which is often used together with Privoxy.

http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.

 Hal Burgiss (docs)
 Andreas Oesterhelt
 David Schmidt (OS/2, Mac OSX ports)

Johny Agotnes Rodrigo Barbosa (RPM specfiles) Moritz Barsnick Brian Dessent Mattes Dolak Jon Foster Karsten Hopp (Red Hat) Alexander Lazic Daniel Leite Gábor Lipták Adam Lock (Win32) Guy Laroche Haroon Rafique Roland Rosenfeld (Debian) Georg Sauthoff (Gentoo) Thomas Steudten Joerg Strohmayer (Amiga) Rodney Stromlund Sviatoslav Sviridov Sarantis Paskalis Stefan Waldherr

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