Re: [BFilter-users] Signal handler request

[Joseph A. <jos...@ma...>]

> OK.  I have neither need nor desire for GUI.
So, should I implement rereading the config in the master process and ignore 
the problem of running backends not catching the changes?

> > > I am confused by "next-hop".  What is its purpose/what does it do?
> > > Could we please have comments in ~config and/or docs on sourceforge?
> >
> > Hop is basically a way from one proxy (or a client or a sever) to
> > another.
>
> Erm.  I think you left out a critical phrase or word in the above line.
>
> My setup works with next-hop commented and the following 3 lines
> properly configured, but I STILL have no clue what next-hop is for <g>.
; next-hop http proxy
is just a comment.  Well, I guess only people who've read the HTTP standard 
have an idea of what hops have to do with proxies, so I should replace it 
with something like "http proxy to forward to".

> > Compiles fine on gcc 3.2.3 here.  I think it was a problem with a
> > specific version of bfilter.
>
> OK.  I have a long long error in 3.2.3 that I have not applied the fix
> for, so I'm still using 3.2.2.  I guess it is time to take care of
> 3.2.3's "long long" bug.  I'm compiling bfilter-0.8.2 so I think the
> problem is in gcc, not in "a specific version of bfilter".  When I have
> a working 3.2.3 I'll let you know what happens.
Compiling bfilter with gcc 3.x is not a good idea anyway.  It will make it 
several times slower, while gcc-2.95.3 build actually outperforms icc 7.

> > > Q:  Does rules.local override or supplement rules?  IOW, if rules.local
> > > is empty, does rules still apply?
> >
> > It supplements them.  Here is what it does exactly:
> > 1. Read a rule block from rules.local.
> > 2. Fill the absent parameters with defaults from rules.local (normally
> > there are no defaults there, unless you want to override global
> > defaults). 3. If rules contains a block with the same pattern, use this
> > block to fill the parameters which are still absent.
> > 4. Fill the absent parameters with defaults from rules.
> > 5. Fill the absent parameters with the hardcoded defaults.
>
> Beautiful.  Please put this just as you wrote it in the top of
> rules.local.
Actually it's not how bfilter works, it's just a way to think about it.  The 
3rd step is especially incorrect.  The real implementation is too complex to 
describe, but its main feature is that the performance is nearly constant 
with any number of rules.

> > > If there is a bash/perl/Etc. guru out there who wants to write a
> > > conversion program that reads privoxy's *.action files and writes
> > > rules.local, that would be A Very Good Thing for a ~/contrib directory
> > > (hint hint).
> >
> > Is there a need in that?  My rules.local is currently empty and I see ads
> > so rarely that I don't bother to create rules for them.
>
> Here's what I found, and it should be in the docs somewhere:  Empty the
> browser's cache before you complain about things that bfilter misses ;)
> In other words, the ads that got past bfilter were those still in
> Netscape's cache, which I didn't think of because privoxy was blocking
> them.  So, the short answer to your question is, "probably not!".  After
> clearing the cache, there are no more ads - only empty boxes where they
> would be.
Since most of the pages these days are dynamic (and thus ignore 
If-Modified-Since header), clearing the cache is not needed in most cases.
Restarting the browser is a must however.
I think I'll write a small FAQ and put it to the site.

> One more question if I may.  It appears that bfilter works better with
> javascript turned on than with it off.  Is that my imagination?  (I
> always surf with js off, turning it on only when something I really want
> fails.)
Theoretically possible.  For example they show a flash ad with javascript, and 
have a replacement image inside <noscript>.  For a flash movie, it's very 
easy to be marked as ad (loop=true or an external url is enough), while for 
an image there are many more parameters to consider.