Daniels Blog - Latest Comments on Privoxy Filter for Google Analytics http://daniel.hahler.de/?disp=comments de-DE http://backend.userland.com/rss 60 Dan [Besucher] in Antwort auf: Privoxy Filter for Google Analytics Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:09:13 +0000 Dan [Besucher] c12659@http://daniel.hahler.de/ I believe you can also just do this:<br /> <br /> { +block{Google crap} +handle-as-empty-document}<br /> google-analytics.com/.*\.js$<br /> googlesyndication.com/.*\.js$
{ +block{Google crap} +handle-as-empty-document}
google-analytics.com/.*\.js$
googlesyndication.com/.*\.js$]]> http://daniel.hahler.de/privoxy-filter-for-google-analytics#c12659 Casey Jones [Besucher] in Antwort auf: Privoxy Filter for Google Analytics Fri, 22 May 2009 09:44:13 +0000 Casey Jones [Besucher] c12554@http://daniel.hahler.de/ Thanks very much, Terry. Not long after posting that, I did come to the realization that Privoxy uses UNIX regular expressions. Believe it or not, I hadn't known of their existence before, and thought that Privoxy was using some kind of proprietary pattern-matching expressions which they didn't explain very well... But it was written directly at the beginning of Chapter 9 of Privoxy's manual that one should "be familiar with HTML syntax, and, of course, regular expressions." A forehead-slap is in order! Now I am enlightened... http://daniel.hahler.de/privoxy-filter-for-google-analytics#c12554 terry chay [Besucher] in Antwort auf: Privoxy Filter for Google Analytics Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:46:57 +0000 terry chay [Besucher] c12103@http://daniel.hahler.de/ 1) It means any text that isn’t a greater than sign<br /> 2) It means no greedy regex capture (i.e. .*? = capture the minimal amount of text that matches this pattern)<br /> 3) it's a word boundary. It means that the match has to be the beginning of a "word" (i.e. theurchinTracker() won't match but urchinTracker() will)<br /> 4) Try refreshing and remember to include the filter rule in user.action and have a trailing "/" so it filters all URLs.<br /> <br /> I hope this helps.<br /> <br /> Take care,<br /> <br /> terry 2) It means no greedy regex capture (i.e. .*? = capture the minimal amount of text that matches this pattern)
3) it's a word boundary. It means that the match has to be the beginning of a "word" (i.e. theurchinTracker() won't match but urchinTracker() will)
4) Try refreshing and remember to include the filter rule in user.action and have a trailing "/" so it filters all URLs.

I hope this helps.

Take care,

terry]]> http://daniel.hahler.de/privoxy-filter-for-google-analytics#c12103 Casey Jones [Besucher] in Antwort auf: Privoxy Filter for Google Analytics Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:06:45 +0000 Casey Jones [Besucher] c12051@http://daniel.hahler.de/ <p>Oh my, I'm terribly sorry! Let's try that once more...</p> <p>As you're probably aware, since the time you wrote this helpful filter Google has released a newer Analytics script, called "ga.js" instead of "urchin.js", and it's function/method is called _gat._getTracker() rather than urchinTracker(). Here's an article about it, for anyone to whose attention this hadn't already come:</p> <p>http://www.epikone.com/blog/2007/10/16/gajs-new-google-analytics-tracking-code/</p> <p>I've tried my best to write a couple supplemental (* because the old Analytics code your filter deals with is also still in use) lines for your filter, but I'm a complete newb with Privoxy and would appreciate any syntax-checking that you/anyone can grace me with:</p> <p>s|&lt;script.*?google-analytics\.com/ga\.js*.?&lt;/script&gt;||gis <br />s|&lt;script\s[^&gt;]*?_gat\._getTracker(*.).*?&lt;/script&gt;||gis</p> <p>There are a few things about Privoxy's filters' syntax that I still don't grasp after reading the brunt of Chapter 9: "Filter Files" in the manual. This chapter has a sort of storytelling approach, when what I would wish for is a very simple, cut-and-dry reference of filter operators.</p> <p>Perhaps some things which it seems to me they left out will be more obvious to *nix-minded people since, for better or for worse, I come from a Windows background. I'm hoping someone can help me with the answers to these questions:</p> <p>1) What does "[^&gt;]*" mean? The manual says the following three things, but I still don't get it:</p> <p>- "* means: 'Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself'" <br />- "The ['"] construct means: 'a single or a double quote'." <br />- "s/(&lt;body [^&gt;]*)onunload(.*&gt;)/$1never$2/iU <br />"... we had to use [^&gt;]* instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the &lt;body&gt; tag if it doesn't contain "OnUnload", but the page's content does."</p> <p>My interpretation is that this includes x-number of caret OR closing-bracket symbols in the filter. However, I don't know where caret (^) symbols are used in HTML... or how this would help keep the filter from exceeding the body tag. Probably I'm just ignorant of something simple, of which I hope someone is able to enlighten me!</p> <p>2) What does a question-mark indicate? The manual says only the following two things:</p> <p>- "s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig <br />"The ? in .*? makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the U option is not set)." <br />- "s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig <br />"Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead) in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string ".com" appears directly following "microsoft" in the page."</p> <p>Maybe I'm just dumb, but my mind still isn't sure it comprehends this question-mark abstract from these two anecdotal explanations. Isn't any string you write in the filters searched for regardless of whether or not the question-mark precedes it? I don't understand how it changes the filter's behavior. I've tried to use this syntax, er... intuitively in my additions (I guessed!).</p> <p>3) The second line of your filter begins with "\b". What's that? The manual explains that "\s" indicates a variable amount of whitespace (or none), but I find no mention of "\b".</p> <p>4) Although my additions to your filters are reported to work by the script... <br />http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url=[insert URL for testing] <br />... the theoretically-filtered scripts still show up when I view the source-code of a page. Why is this? Probably it's explained somewhere in the manual, but I don't know where to begin looking and I'm a bit discouraged by my experience with its chapter on filters.</p> <p>One fella' reports the same unchanged-source behavior I'm describing, in regard to your own filter, at this link:</p> <p>http://sysblogd.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/how-to-among-others-block-google-analytics-java-script-urchinjs-from-revealing-your-site-usage/</p> <p>He seems to think it's working, but neither he nor I are sure. Please help explain if you can.</p> <p>PS: I noticed that you didn't escape your periods from the URL. It ought to process just the same, but formally shouldn't it be written "google-analytics\.com/urchin\.js"?</p> Oh my, I'm terribly sorry! Let's try that once more...

As you're probably aware, since the time you wrote this helpful filter Google has released a newer Analytics script, called "ga.js" instead of "urchin.js", and it's function/method is called _gat._getTracker() rather than urchinTracker(). Here's an article about it, for anyone to whose attention this hadn't already come:

http://www.epikone.com/blog/2007/10/16/gajs-new-google-analytics-tracking-code/

I've tried my best to write a couple supplemental (* because the old Analytics code your filter deals with is also still in use) lines for your filter, but I'm a complete newb with Privoxy and would appreciate any syntax-checking that you/anyone can grace me with:

s|<script.*?google-analytics\.com/ga\.js*.?</script>||gis
s|<script\s[^>]*?_gat\._getTracker(*.).*?</script>||gis

There are a few things about Privoxy's filters' syntax that I still don't grasp after reading the brunt of Chapter 9: "Filter Files" in the manual. This chapter has a sort of storytelling approach, when what I would wish for is a very simple, cut-and-dry reference of filter operators.

Perhaps some things which it seems to me they left out will be more obvious to *nix-minded people since, for better or for worse, I come from a Windows background. I'm hoping someone can help me with the answers to these questions:

1) What does "[^>]*" mean? The manual says the following three things, but I still don't get it:

- "* means: 'Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself'"
- "The ['"] construct means: 'a single or a double quote'."
- "s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU
"... we had to use [^>]* instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the <body> tag if it doesn't contain "OnUnload", but the page's content does."

My interpretation is that this includes x-number of caret OR closing-bracket symbols in the filter. However, I don't know where caret (^) symbols are used in HTML... or how this would help keep the filter from exceeding the body tag. Probably I'm just ignorant of something simple, of which I hope someone is able to enlighten me!

2) What does a question-mark indicate? The manual says only the following two things:

- "s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig
"The ? in .*? makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the U option is not set)."
- "s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig
"Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead) in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string ".com" appears directly following "microsoft" in the page."

Maybe I'm just dumb, but my mind still isn't sure it comprehends this question-mark abstract from these two anecdotal explanations. Isn't any string you write in the filters searched for regardless of whether or not the question-mark precedes it? I don't understand how it changes the filter's behavior. I've tried to use this syntax, er... intuitively in my additions (I guessed!).

3) The second line of your filter begins with "\b". What's that? The manual explains that "\s" indicates a variable amount of whitespace (or none), but I find no mention of "\b".

4) Although my additions to your filters are reported to work by the script...
http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url=[insert URL for testing]
... the theoretically-filtered scripts still show up when I view the source-code of a page. Why is this? Probably it's explained somewhere in the manual, but I don't know where to begin looking and I'm a bit discouraged by my experience with its chapter on filters.

One fella' reports the same unchanged-source behavior I'm describing, in regard to your own filter, at this link:

http://sysblogd.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/how-to-among-others-block-google-analytics-java-script-urchinjs-from-revealing-your-site-usage/

He seems to think it's working, but neither he nor I are sure. Please help explain if you can.

PS: I noticed that you didn't escape your periods from the URL. It ought to process just the same, but formally shouldn't it be written "google-analytics\.com/urchin\.js"?

]]> http://daniel.hahler.de/privoxy-filter-for-google-analytics#c12051 Forest [Besucher] in Antwort auf: Privoxy Filter for Google Analytics Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:07:40 +0000 Forest [Besucher] c11683@http://daniel.hahler.de/ Danke! http://daniel.hahler.de/privoxy-filter-for-google-analytics#c11683