               Announcing Privoxy 3.0.24 stable
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Privoxy 3.0.24 stable contains a couple of new features but is
mainly a bug-fix release. Two of the fixed bugs are security issues
and may be used to remotely trigger crashes on platforms that
carefully check memory accesses (most don't).

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ChangeLog for Privoxy
--------------------------------------------------------------------
- Security fixes (denial of service):
  - Prevent invalid reads in case of corrupt chunk-encoded content.
    CVE-2016-1982. Bug discovered with afl-fuzz and AddressSanitizer.
  - Remove empty Host headers in client requests.
    Previously they would result in invalid reads. CVE-2016-1983.
    Bug discovered with afl-fuzz and AddressSanitizer.

- Bug fixes:
  - When using socks5t, send the request body optimistically as well.
    Previously the request body wasn't guaranteed to be sent at all
    and the error message incorrectly blamed the server.
    Fixes #1686 reported by Peter Müller and G4JC.
  - Fixed buffer scaling in execute_external_filter() that could lead
    to crashes. Submitted by Yang Xia in #892.
  - Fixed crashes when executing external filters on platforms like
    Mac OS X. Reported by Jonathan McKenzie on ijbswa-users@.
  - Properly parse ACL directives with ports when compiled with HAVE_RFC2553.
    Previously the port wasn't removed from the host and in case of
    'permit-access 127.0.0.1 example.org:80' Privoxy would try (and fail)
    to resolve "example.org:80" instead of example.org.
    Reported by Pak Chan on ijbswa-users@.
  - Check requests more carefully before serving them forcefully
    when blocks aren't enforced. Privoxy always adds the force token
    at the beginning of the path, but would previously accept it anywhere
    in the request line. This could result in requests being served that
    should be blocked. For example in case of pages that were loaded with
    force and contained JavaScript to create additionally requests that
    embed the origin URL (thus inheriting the force prefix).
    The bug is not considered a security issue and the fix does not make
    it harder for remote sites to intentionally circumvent blocks if
    Privoxy isn't configured to enforce them.
    Fixes #1695 reported by Korda.
  - Normalize the request line in intercepted requests to make rewriting
    the destination more convenient. Previously rewrites for intercepted
    requests were expected to fail unless $hostport was being used, but
    they failed "the wrong way" and would result in an out-of-memory
    message (vanilla host patterns) or a crash (extended host patterns).
    Reported by "Guybrush Threepwood" in #1694.
  - Enable socket lingering for the correct socket.
    Previously it was repeatedly enabled for the listen socket
    instead of for the accepted socket. The bug was found by
    code inspection and did not cause any (reported) issues.
  - Detect and reject parameters for parameter-less actions.
    Previously they were silently ignored.
  - Fixed invalid reads in internal and outdated pcre code.
    Found with afl-fuzz and AddressSanitizer.
  - Prevent invalid read when loading invalid action files.
    Found with afl-fuzz and AddressSanitizer.
  - Windows build: Use the correct function to close the event handle.
    It's unclear if this bug had a negative impact on Privoxy's behaviour.
    Reported by Jarry Xu in #891.
  - In case of invalid forward-socks5(t) directives, use the
    correct directive name in the error messages. Previously they
    referred to forward-socks4t failures.
    Reported by Joel Verhagen in #889.

- General improvements:
  - Set NO_DELAY flag for the accepting socket. This significantly reduces
    the latency if the operating system is not configured to set the flag
    by default. Reported by Johan Sintorn in #894.
  - Allow to build with mingw x86_64. Submitted by Rustam Abdullaev in #135.
  - Introduce the new forwarding type 'forward-webserver'.
    Currently it is only supported by the forward-override{} action and
    there's no config directive with the same name. The forwarding type
    is similar to 'forward', but the request line only contains the path
    instead of the complete URL.
  - The CGI editor no longer treats 'standard.action' special.
    Nowadays the official "standards" are part of default.action
    and there's no obvious reason to disallow editing them through
    the cgi editor anyway (if the user decided that the lack of
    authentication isn't an issue in her environment).
  - Improved error messages when rejecting intercepted requests
    with unknown destination.
  - A couple of log messages now include the number of active threads.
  - Removed non-standard Proxy-Agent headers in HTTP snipplets
    to make testing more convenient.
  - Include the error code for pcre errors Privoxy does not recognize.
  - Config directives with numerical arguments are checked more carefully.
  - Privoxy's malloc() wrapper has been changed to prevent zero-size
    allocations which should only occur as the result of bugs.
  - Various cosmetic changes.

- Action file improvements:
  - Unblock ".deutschlandradiokultur.de/".
    Reported by u302320 in #924.
  - Add two fast-redirect exceptions for "yandex.ru".
  - Disable filter{banners-by-size} for ".plasmaservice.de/".
  - Unblock "klikki.fi/adv/".
  - Block requests for "resources.infolinks.com/".
    Reported by "Black Rider" on ijbswa-users@.
  - Block a bunch of criteo domains.
    Reported by Black Rider.
  - Block "abs.proxistore.com/abe/".
    Reported by Black Rider.
  - Disable filter{banners-by-size} for ".black-mosquito.org/".
  - Disable fast-redirects for "disqus.com/".

- Documentation improvements:
  - FAQ: Explicitly point fingers at ASUS as an example of a
    company that has been reported to force malware based on
    Privoxy upon its customers.
  - Correctly document the action type for a bunch of "multi-value"
    actions that were incorrectly documented to be "parameterized".
    Reported by Gregory Seidman on ijbswa-users@.
  - Fixed the documented type of the forward-override{} action
    which is obviously 'parameterized'.

- Website improvements:
  - Users who don't trust binaries served by SourceForge
    can get them from a mirror. Migrating away from SourceForge
    is planned for 2016 (TODO list item #53).
  - The website is now available as onion service
    (http://jvauzb4sb3bwlsnc.onion/).

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About Privoxy:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for
enhancing privacy, modifying web page data and HTTP headers, controlling
access, and removing ads and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a
flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and
tastes. It has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user
networks.

Privoxy is Free Software and licensed under the GNU GPLv2.

Our TODO list is rather long. Helping hands and donations are welcome:

  * http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#PARTICIPATE

  * http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#DONATE

At present, Privoxy is known to run on Windows 95 and later versions
(98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 etc.), GNU/Linux (RedHat, SuSE,
Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and others), Mac OS X (10.4 and
upwards on PPC and Intel processors), OS/2, Haiku, DragonFly, ElectroBSD,
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and various other flavors of Unix.

In addition to the core features of ad blocking and cookie management,
Privoxy provides many supplemental features, that give the end-user
more control, more privacy and more freedom:

  *  Supports "Connection: keep-alive". Outgoing connections can be kept
     alive independently from the client. Currently not available on all
     platforms.

  *  Supports IPv6, provided the operating system does so too,
     and the configure script detects it.

  *  Supports tagging which allows to change the behaviour based on client
     and server headers.

  *  Can be run as an "intercepting" proxy, which obviates the need to
     configure browsers individually.

  *  Sophisticated actions and filters for manipulating both server and
     client headers.

  *  Can be chained with other proxies.

  *  Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at
     http://config.privoxy.org/ (shortcut: http://p.p/). Browser-based
     tracing of rule and filter effects. Remote toggling.

  *  Web page filtering (text replacements, removes banners based on size,
     invisible "web-bugs" and HTML annoyances, etc.)

  *  Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
     settings to reside in separate files, so that installing updated actions
     files won't overwrite individual user settings.

  *  Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration
     files, and a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax.

  *  GIF de-animation.

  *  Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).

  *  User-customizable HTML templates for most proxy-generated pages (e.g.
     "blocked" page).

  *  Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
    
  *  Most features are controllable on a per-site or per-location basis.


Home Page: 
   http://www.privoxy.org/

  - Privoxy Developers <ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net>
