[Privoxy-announce] Announcing Privoxy 4.1.0 stable

[Fabian Keil]

               Announcing Privoxy 4.1.0 stable
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Privoxy 4.1.0 fixes a few minor bugs and brings ZStandard-decompression
support and a couple of general improvements.

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ChangeLog for Privoxy 4.1.0
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- General improvements:
  - Add Zstandard-decompression support.
  - compile_pattern(): Use pcre2_get_error_message() to provide better error messages.
  - wolfssl: Use wolfTLS_client_method() instead of wolfSSLv23_method()
    when creating the connection to the server. Allows to connect to
    https://media.ccc.de/ and https://traxxas.com/ while wolfSSLv23_method()
    currently doesn't (wolfSSL 5.8.4). Unfortunately this does not allow to
    connect to https://www.fsf.org/ while wolfSSLv23_method() does.
    Reported upstream in https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/issues/7735.
    curl is using wolfTLS_client_method() with recent wolfSSL versions
    as well so this seems to be the way to go.
  - wolfssl: Warn if HAVE_SECURE_RENEGOTIATION is unavailable
    and don't suggest to use HAVE_RENEGOTIATION_INDICATION instead.
  - show-status template: Add links for external (de)compression libraries.
  - If the server sends multiple Connection headers, only parse and
    forward the first one.
  - create_hexadecimal_hash_of_host(): Use snprintf() instead of sprint()
    Silences a warning on OpenBSD.
  - Also log the listening address and port the request came in on.
  - Added periods to a couple of log messages.
  - Removed support for pcre1.
  - configure.in: Removed obsolete warning if OpenSSL is detected.
    Recent OpenSSL versions are licensed under the Apache 2 license so
    the "special exception" from section 3 of the GPLv2 isn't needed
    and a Privoxy binary linked to OpenSSL can be distributed under the
    GPLv3 or later.
  - init_domain_components(): Assert that the http->dbuffer and http->dvec
    are NULL to detect memory leaks earlier.

- Bug fixes:
  - openssl: Don't call SSL_set_tlsext_host_name() if the host is an IP address
    With LibreSSl the call simply fails and with OpenSSL the call
    succeeds but results in an syntactically incorrect ClientHello
    a server may object to. While at it, add the host name to the error message.
  - Don't forward connection options Privoxy doesn't understand.
  - Look for the "keep-alive" keyword more carefully in Connection headers.
    Previously connections were not kept alive if the Connection header
    contained additional keywords like "Upgrade".
  - If the MS IIS5 hack fails, only send the error response if we're buffering content
    Previously the error response was also sent if the client already
    received the HTTP headers from the server.
  - Fix compilation when configured with --disable-ipv6-support.
    Submitted by Luca Broglio.
  - Fixed detection and use of pcre2.h from a subdirectory.
    SF bug #946. Patch submitted by Jakub Kulik.
  - Properly handle IPv6 addresses in the Host header.
    Reported by Joshua Rogers.
  - socks4_connect(): Fix the dstsize passed to strlcpy() in case of socks4a.
    Previously Privoxy would substract sizeof(struct socks_op) twice
    as it's already part of csiz. While this was wrong it didn't
    cause any actual problems as the buffer size is so large that
    it didn't matter. Reported by Joshua Rogers.
  - error_response(): Prevent a theoretical memory leak. Reported by Joshua Rogers.
  - log_error(): Fix a segmentation fault when logging %E on a platform that
    isn't Windows and doesn't have strerror(). Reported by Joshua Rogers.
  - accept_connection(): Fix memory and socket leak if the server name and
    port number ASCII decimal representation don't fit. This is not expected
    to happen. Reported by Joshua Rogers.
  - parse_http_url(): Fail if no host is found when we expected one.
    This can happen in case of invalid requests in which case
    Privoxy previously would leak a couple of bytes of memory.

- Action file improvements:
  - Prevent a fingerprinting issue with various login pages by not handling
    the requests as image requests or fast-redirecting them. Without the added
    section a request to a blocked or redirected login URL could be misdetected
    by third parties as the user being logged in to the given site, thus making
    fingerprinting Privoxy users easier. Note that this does not prevent the
    fingerprinting issue if the client is actually logged in. For details see:
    https://robinlinus.github.io/socialmedia-leak/
    Doing that would probably be too invasive for a default configuration.
  - Stop downgrading the HTTP version for port 631. It was supposed to work
    around a problem with the CUPS webinterface but about 20 years later we
    probably don't need it anymore ...
  - Fix sticky actions for .flickr.com to match the action section.
  - Remove an action section without an URL pattern.
  - Disable fast-redirects for .bahn.de/
  - Disable fast-redirects for report.error-report.com/
  - Unblock metrics.1aeo.com/
  - Unblock .crates.io/
  - Block requests for mv.outbrain.com/
  - Disable filter{banners-by-size} for .jwz.org/
  - Disable deanimate-gifs for .githubusercontent.com/
  - Disable the banners-by-size filter for github.com
  - Widen block pattern from 'metrics.' to '.metricts.'
  - Add +server-header-tagger{content-type} to all standard settings.

- Filter improvements:
  - Update imdb filter to remove wasted space below the search field.
  - Update bundeswehr.de filter to be effective again.
  - Removed the obsolete ie-exploits filter. It didn't actually reliably
    protect against Nimda, there never were active maintainers and IE is
    obsolete anyway. Also some virus scanners seem to be offended by the
    test case for the filter in the source tarball.

- Privoxy-Log-Parser:
  - Bumped version to 0.9.7.
  - Fully highlight: Accepted connection from 127.0.0.1 on socket 9 connected through 127.0.1.1:8118.
  - Highlight: Socket 8 timed out while waiting for client headers
  - Highlight: 'Giving up draining socket 35.'
  - Highlight: "Tagger 'http-method' didn't add tag 'POST': suppressed"
  - Highlight: 'Skipped filter 'banners-by-size' after job number 1: match limit exceeded (-47)'

- uagen:
  - Bumped version to 0.1.7
  - Bumped BROWSER_VERSION and BROWSER_REVISION to match Firefox ESR 140.

- Documentation:
  - Updated license info to deal with wolfSSL's license change to GPLv3.
  - Added new FAQ: 'Is the Privoxy source tarball infected by a virus?'.
  - Removed claims that path matching can be turned case-sensitive.
    The suggested method didn't actually work.

- Website improvements:
  - GNUmakefile.in: Add a web-robots.txt target to only transfer the robots.txt to the SF server.
  - robots.txt: Disallow /gitweb to hopefully reduce the load on the webserver
  - robots.txt: Remove stray empty lines
  - Added a vanity onion address for the privoxy.org onion service.

- Tests:
  - Updated test framework to work with recent (rc-8_18_0-3) cts upstream tests.
  - tests/cts/run-privoxy-tests.sh: Pass arguments that follow "--" to
    runtests-wrapper.sh so they can be passed to runtests.pl.
    This allows to only run a single test without modifying the scripts:
        ./run-privoxy-tests.sh -t upstream-tests -- 473
  - run-privoxy-tests.sh: Explicitly log if there were no errors.
  - run-privoxy-tests.sh: Continue testing if a test in a test scenario fails.
  - runtests-wrapper.sh: Explicitly set the path to the curl binary
    using an absolute path. Otherwise runtests.pl uses a relative
    path in its output which can be confusing.
  - runtests-wrapper.sh: Improve a log message.
  - Disable the forward-to-socks-proxy and forward-to-http-proxy scenarios
    for now. Since curl commit d39db811929f the port randomisation can no
    longer be disabled by the injected module so the tests don't work at the
    moment. Discussion on the curl library mailinglist didn't result in
    a solution (https://curl.se/mail/lib-2025-08/0000.html).
  - tests/cts: Remove 'none' server section from tests.
    It's no longer supported as of curl commit 71c9706959cb.
  - run-privoxy-tests.sh: Print supported arguments in case of invalid ones.
  - Add a test for the bundeswehr.de filter.
  - tests/cts/gzip-compression/data/test13: Fix repetitive sequence by adding a missing %.
  - Add a couple of tests for connection headers with keep-alive-timeout set.
  - Add fetch test for the How-Tos in the user manual.
  - ../privoxy-runtests.pm: Prevent warning if $_ is undefined.
  - tests/cts/runtests-wrapper.sh: Stop explicitly setting HOSTIP.
    It doesn't work with curl master at the moment.
  - Let the "clean" target remove logs from the cts tests.
  - .../content-filters/content-filters.action: Remove duplicate action section.

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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 or later.

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

  * https://www.privoxy.org/participate

  * https://www.privoxy.org/donate

At present, Privoxy is known to run on Windows 95 and later versions
(98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10 etc.), GNU/Linux
(RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and others),
Mac OS X (10.4 and upwards on PPC and Intel processors), 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.

  *  Supports https inspection which allows to filter https requests.

  *  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: 
   https://www.privoxy.org/

  - Privoxy Developers <privoxy-devel at lists.privoxy.org>
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