http://www.falken.net/webfree/
Copyright 1996-1997 by Steven Falkenburg. All Rights Reserved.
Warranty and License information is printed at the end of this User's
Guide.
Special thanks to my beta testers, including Nancy Falkenburg, Steve
Bollinger, Nitin Ganatra, Dave Clancy, Jim Luther, Alex Rosenberg,
Brian Bechtel, Jeff Robbin, Mike Neil, Greg Robbins, and many
more.
Apple and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
Netscape Navigator is a registered trademark of Netscape, Inc.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is a registered trademark of Microsoft
Corporation. All other names are registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
What is WebFree?
WebFree is a tool that works with existing web browsers to let you,
the individual, take control over what you see when you visit web
sites.
Were you annoyed when your favorite site added huge advertisements?
Do you use web browsers in a educational setting where you don't want
kids subjected to advertisements for beer, or worse? Are you surfing
the web over a slow modem link, falling asleep before a page loads
all of its flashy graphics? Are you concerned with your privacy when
browsing the web? If so, WebFree might be for you.
WebFree allows you to be the editor for the web sites you visit. You
can use it to screen out advertisements, unwanted images or links,
and web cookies. The goal of WebFree is to make your web surfing more
productive.
WebFree is a single Control Panel that works with your existing
Internet connection and browser software. It works over direct
Internet connections, as well as over modem and ISDN PPP links. Both
MacTCP and Open Transport are supported, and WebFree is designed to
work with all major Macintosh web browsers, including Netscape,
Internet Explorer, Cyberdog, and the AOL web browser.
Finally, WebFree is ShareWare. If you like it, you can register by
visiting
http://www.falken.net/webfree/.
I didn't cripple the unregistered version, and you don't need to
enter any complicated serial numbers to register. Once you've paid,
just check the "I've paid" checkbox, and you're registered. Thanks to
Peter N. Lewis for this great "honor system" innovation.
What can WebFree do for me?
Plenty. Read on. Seriously, chapter 5 "Usage Scenarios" provides some
typical target audiences and their usage patterns.
System Requirements
Before installing WebFree, make sure your system conforms to the
minimum system requirements, as outlined in chapter 9.
Briefly, WebFree requires System 7.1 or later, either MacTCP or Open
Transport, and a supported web browser, such as Netscape Navigator,
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Cyberdog, or the AOL web browser.
How to Install WebFree
The standard WebFree distribution includes five files: the WebFree
Control Panel, this user's guide, a short readme file, a link to my
home page, and the Kagi registration application.
To install, simply drag the WebFree icon to your closed System
Folder, or into your Control Panels folder. Next, reboot your
computer. It is necessary to reboot before WebFree becomes
active.
How to remove WebFree
Why would you ever want to do that? To remove WebFree, simply drag it
out of your Control Panels folder and reboot. Alternatively, you may
disable WebFree via the Extensions Manager in System 7.5 and
later.
WebFree agreement dialog
After installing WebFree and rebooting, the above agreement dialog
will be displayed. If you click "Accept", WebFree will install
properly, and the dialog will not be displayed again.
If you click "Do Not Accept", WebFree will not be installed. Each
time you reboot, the dialog will be displayed, until you either
accept the agreement or remove WebFree from your system.
Other WebFree files
In addition to the WebFree Control Panel, a file named "WebFree
Preferences" will be created in your preferences folder. This file
tracks whether you have agreed to the WebFree usage terms, records
your usage statistics, your configuration settings, and your
registration status.
Removing this preferences file and rebooting will cause WebFree to
restart in its default configuration, clearing any user-defined
settings and registration information. After removing the file and
rebooting, the agreement dialog described above will be displayed
again.
Surfing with WebFree installed
To use WebFree, just drop it on your System Folder, reboot, and
launch your favorite web browser. Before WebFree, a web page may have
looked like:
Without WebFree
After installing WebFree, pages will look more like this:
With WebFree
Blocking additional images using contextual menus
WebFree isn't perfect. It doesn't block all images that you might
like it to. Luckily, it is fully configurable, which is described in
detail in the next chapter, "Configuring WebFree". The simplest way
to block additional images with WebFree is to click and hold the
mouse over the image in your web browser. When you do so, you'll see
a menu, similar to the one shown here:
If you scroll down to "Block this image with WebFree" and release,
the URL for the image selected will be added to WebFree's blocking
settings, and the web page will be reloaded without the image.
This feature isn't perfect. First, it's only supported with Netscape
and Internet Explorer. In addition, it doesn't always work. Some web
pages load a different image each time the page is refreshed
(especially in the case of advertisements). If the "Block this image"
menu item doesn't work, open the WebFree control panel, and edit the
newly added blocker string as described in the next chapter (hit the
Edit button on the Settings tab).
One last weird thing about this feature: with Netscape, the menu item
says "Block this image", while with Internet Explorer, it says "Block
this link". Image blocking keys the blocking request off the GIF
image displayed on the page, while link blocking keys the request off
of the URL you go to when the link is clicked. Both image and link
blocking have pretty much the same effect- an image won't be
displayed if you remove its corresponding attached link.
Other neat stuff
Besides image blocking, WebFree can block web cookies, stop blinking
text, and stop cycling GIF animations.
Cookies
Web "cookies" basically provide a means for a web site to store
little bits of information which can be retrieved whenever you return
to a web site. You can think of them as "preferences" files for web
sites. Some uses for cookies include tracking which pages on a web
site you've visited (and how many times), storing a "shopping basket"
for electronic commerce, or storing login and password information
for web sites that you visit regularly.
Many people don't like the idea that web sites are building up
information on them, even if that information is stored on your local
computer. For people concerned about cookies, WebFree can eliminate
this concern by blocking cookies. If cookie blocking is enabled,
WebFree still allows sites to set cookies, it just doesn't ever let
the local browser send the cookie back to the site.
Some sites require cookies to operate. For instance, some electronic
newspapers and financial sites won't let you access the site without
cookies. In these cases, you can uncheck the "block cookies" checkbox
in the WebFree control panel when entering the site, and check it
when leaving. This gives you more control than some other cookie
utilities, which blast over all of your cookies whenever you
reboot.
Blink Tag Blocking
Some HTML (web page) features have always been annoying. Tops on this
list, in my opinion, are "blink tags". Although they're now somewhat
out of vogue, you'll still find them hiding out on sites named things
like "$$$ MAKE MONEY FAST $$$". When text on a web page is surrounded
by blink tags, it blinks on and off, trying to attract your
attention. It gives me a headache, which is why I added this feature.
If you love blinking text, you can turn off WebFree's blink blocking
from the control panel.
GIF Animation Blocking
GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) is used to encode many of the images
you find on web sites. GIF has gone through several incarnations, one
of which added the support for primitive animation. Netscape extended
the support for this animation by specifying an extension to GIF that
allows the animations to run continuously. Lots of sites use GIF
animation to show things like spinning globes or digging "under
construction" people. Probably the most prevalent GIF animation is
the little Internet Explorer logo with the animating "e". I kind of
liked things before all of this eye-catching animation (call me
old-fashioned, I guess), so I added the "block GIF animation" feature
of WebFree.
The GIF animation blocking feature of WebFree doesn't really block
GIF animations. Instead, it just prevents them from repeating. So, if
there's a graphic on a web page that assembles itself by flying in
bit by bit, it will still do this when GIF animations are blocked.
The difference is, once the graphic has finished loading, you won't
have to watch it flying around the rest of the time you're looking at
that web page. Advertisements are often the biggest users of
animating GIFs, for obvious reasons- they want the ads to catch your
eye. If you want, you can turn off ad blocking (image blocking) but
leave GIF animation blocking enabled. This will let you look at the
ads, but they won't spin and flip around over and over.
Anything Else?
If you have ideas for new WebFree features, let me know. Heck, maybe
I'll do a version that puts advertisements into web pages that don't
have any.
WebFree Control Panel
WebFree is easy to configure. Just open the WebFree control panel
from your Apple menu, change its settings, and close the window. No
rebooting is necessary to change WebFree's configuration after
installation.
The WebFree control panel is split into different sections, or panes.
You switch between the panes by selecting the tabs at the bottom of
the control panel window. The rest of this chapter describes the
individual panes.
Settings pane
The Settings pane is shown above. The check boxes in this pane
control the heart of WebFree's operations. They enable and disable
blink tags, web cookies, GIF animations, and tag blocking
respectively. Each of these features is described in the previous
chapter "Using WebFree" in detail. The "Block the Following Tags"
checkbox is the WebFree feature that blocks most web advertisements
when enabled. For information on regular expression blocking, new in
version 1.1, see section 6, Regular Expressions.
The scrolling list below "Block the Following Tags" contains every
substring that WebFree matches against when you use WebFree to limit
web page content. To add a new blocker substring, click the "Add..."
button. To remove or edit a blocker substring, select the substring
from the list and click "Remove" or "Edit...". There's some
additional technical discussion about all of this in the
"Troubleshooting" chapter of this guide. Statistics pane
This pane is pretty much self-explanatory. It contains counters that
track how many times WebFree intervened under your direction. Maybe
in a future version I'll add a sounds option so whenever a cookie is
blocked, you hear something. By the way, I got the cool digits off a
web site (they're public domain). Some people like to leave this pane
open while surfing the web, watching the numbers climb from page to
page.
About/Registration pane
This is, of course, my favorite pane. I'll let you guess why.
Seriously, this pane contains the copyright information and contact
e-mail address. It also lets you register by visiting the web page
and by checking the "I Paid" box. The links in the control panel are
made active via Internet Config. When clicked, the web browser or
e-mail package configured in Internet Config is launched.
WebFree for advertisement blocking
The most common usage for WebFree is for advertisement blocking. Many
people don't want to look at advertisements while they surf the net.
WebFree gives them the ability to filter out most ads, giving them a
higher "signal to noise" ratio to their web browsing experience.
To use WebFree for advertisement blocking, you'll want to be sure and
set the "Block the Following Tags" checkbox.
Using WebFree for privacy
For those who are concerned about privacy on the Internet, web
cookies may be an issue. WebFree allows web surfers to block all
cookie transmissions from your browser to web sites.
To enable the cookie blocking feature, follow the directions in
chapter 4 and set the "Suppress Web Cookies" checkbox.
Since WebFree allows remote sites to set cookies, but not retrieve
them, you can disable the "Suppress Web Cookies" option to
selectively allow cookies while browsing certain sites, and then
re-enable cookie blocking later. This makes WebFree's cookie blocking
more useful than other cookie control solutions, which often erase
the entire cookie file every time the computer is rebooted. Also,
unlike the cookie settings in web browsers, WebFree won't throw up a
dialog every time a cookie is transmitted.
Eliminating web page clutter
WebFree gives users the ability to limit a certain amount of web page
clutter. Some users don't like a lot of blinking and flashing at them
while reading web pages. For these users, WebFree has the ability to
block flashing text and animating graphics.
These features are controlled via the "Block Blinking Text" and
"Suppress Web Cookies" check boxes in the WebFree control panel.
Speeding up web surfing
Besides the obvious uses mentioned above, there are several other
ways of using WebFree which many web aficionados will appreciate. The
first of these is as a means of speeding web surfing.
Web browsers have the option of disabling image loading to speed up
network access for slow links. Unfortunately, this is an all or
nothing option, and web pages without any images often have a poor
appearance.
WebFree gives you the option of blocking certain images you see all
of the time, but don't much care to see again. You can tell WebFree
to block a certain image in one of two ways. First, you can use the
contextual menus described in chapter 3 by clicking and holding the
mouse over the image and selecting "Block this with WebFree". The
other way to block images is by adding them to the blocker list
manually by clicking the "Add..." button in the WebFree control
panel. WebFree will look for any occurrence of the strings in this
list within HTML (hypertext markup language) tags between the
characters "<" and ">" on web pages. Any time one of the
strings in this list matches any text inside an HTML tag, the tag is
removed from the web page.
As an example of using WebFree to speed web surfing, you could remove
the graphic logo from a web search engine you often use, or you could
remove a full-page image map from a page and instead use provided
text links. Blocking images via WebFree has the advantage of not
leaving the "image not loaded" icons all over your web page. When
WebFree removes an image, no trace is left behind.
Blocking objectionable material
A second interesting usage of WebFree is as a means of blocking
objectionable material from web sites. By adding items to the blocker
list in the WebFree control panel, any HTML tag may be removed from
web pages.
As an example, you might want to block images on web pages that
contain the word "sex" in the image name. To do this, simply add this
phrase to the blocker list via the control panel.
A second, slightly different, example is to use this feature to block
certain links. For instance, an educational institution might want to
block web surfers from sites in the ".com" domain. To do this, you
could add ".com" to the blocker list in the control panel. This would
remove any links on web pages that connect to commercial sites. This
isn't quite perfect, since it doesn't actually block users from
connecting to these sites by typing a URL manually.
WebFree 1.1 supports regular expressions in the blocker list. In
WebFree, regular expressions are applied to each HTML tag in
isolation. You can see several examples of regular expression
blockers in the default WebFree blocker list. To specify a regular
expression blocker, make the first letter in the blocker " "
(option-R).
Full documentation on regular expressions isn't possible here. There
are several good resources available including:
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/contribs/mlogs/regexp.html
http://www.webcom.com/glossary/regexp.shtml
The egrep manual page
A brief overview with a few examples follows.
Regular expressions are similar to standard search strings, with a
few special characters thrown in. These characters allow searches to
be more flexible, matching several or different combinations of
characters.
In the below table, {ch} means any ordinary character. {chars} means
multiple ordinary characters, unsorted. {str} means a literal
string.
Special Characters
|
|
Matches any single character. |
|
|
Matches any one character specified between the brackets. |
|
|
Matches any character in the ASCII range between the two chars. |
|
|
Matches zero or more occurences of a single character |
|
|
Anchors the start of the search expression to the start of the tag |
|
|
Matches either one or the other literal strings |
|
|
Used for grouping, for example with | above. |
|
|
Used to turn a special character into a literal. For
instance, to |
|
promo.*\.gif |
Matches <IMG SRC="/promo s/stuff.gif "> |
|
HEIGHT=(60|55) |
Matches <IMG SRC="blah.gif" HEIGHT=60 > |
|
WIDTH=[1-2][0-9] |
Matches <IMG SRC="blah.gif" WIDTH=25 > |
Why doesn't WebFree block all of the ads?
WebFree isn't perfect. It won't block all web page advertisements,
and may block fewer over time between updates. WebFree works by
parsing all incoming HTML pages, looking for certain keywords, as
listed in the WebFree control panel. For instance, one of the
keywords in the blocker list is "/ads/". This means that any time
WebFree encounters a web page with an HTML tag containing the text
"/ads/", the tag will be removed.
If WebFree doesn't block an ad on a page you're browsing, you can
include this ad in the blocker list by following the directions in
the "Configuring WebFree" chapter.
How does WebFree affect other applications?
WebFree works by hooking into the TCP/IP network stream on your
computer. You may have already realized that this means all other
network traffic on the machine goes under the nose of WebFree.
Luckily, WebFree is careful about which data it should affect.
If you run across a problem where WebFree interacts poorly with
another network application on the Mac, please let me know, and I'll
look into the problem.
WebFree crashes my computer. What should I do?
Does WebFree ever filter out too much web page
content?
Funny you should ask. One of the WebFree beta testers ran across a
web site with several links containing the phrase "/ad/", but instead
of referring to advertisements, "ad" instead stood for "Application
Development". If you run into a problem like this, you may want to
adjust your blocker list via the control panel. Fortunately, this is
the only incorrect match I've discovered to this point. The blocker
list has been developed to minimize such false hits.
How can I get a WebFree site license?
Site licenses are available. Visit
http://www.falken.net/webfree/
for pricing and information. Registration is via Kagi software.
How can I pay for WebFree with a purchase order?
Many forms of payment, including purchase orders, checks, credit
cards, and others are available via Kagi Software, who manages the
registration for WebFree. Visit
http://www.falken.net/webfree/
for additional information. When is the next version of
XferIt going to be released?
In case anyone remembers, I also wrote XferIt, an FTP client for the
Mac in 1991. Due to a variety of reasons, including not enough time
to fully support the product (FTP clients can be quite complex), I
decided to stop taking money for XferIt in 1993. The last version of
1.5b4 (that's right, 1.5 never did go final). XferIt still runs,
although there's a compatibility problem with Open Transport (not my
fault) that can cause crashes on quit.
Didn't John Norstad write WebFree?
No, that's NewsWatcher 2.0, silly. Here's the real story: I (Steve
Falkenburg) wrote NewsWatcher 1.0 while an intern at Apple's Advanced
Technology Group (ATG) in 1990. At that time, we determined that it
was way too cool for Apple to do anything with, so my manager and
co-workers (Tim Oren, Brian Bechtel, and Harry Chesley) decided that
the best thing to do would be to write a "develop" article about
NewsWatcher, thus putting the source code up for free use by anyone.
In case you're interested, pick up a copy of "develop" magazine,
Issue 6 from May 1991.
As it turned out, John Norstad (from Northwestern University) took up
the NewsWatcher torch, producing way cool new versions of
NewsWatcher, and keeping the source code free for everyone. In an
ironic turn of events, years later, Apple decided NewsWatcher was
cool after all, and ATG gave John a PowerMac, and licensed the
updated NewsWatcher to ship on every new Mac as part of Apple
Internet Connection Kit.
For those keeping score at home, I (Steve) also wrote the XferIt FTP
client and the ZapTCP development tool for MacTCP developers, while
John also wrote Disinfectant, which I'm of course running on all of
my Macs. Somewhere in my past, there are vicious rumors that I wrote
a bunch of PowerTalk/AOCE sample code, and told about 5 kabillion
developers how cool Copland was going to be at a major session during
the 1996 WWDC. At least I was right about the Internet catching on. I
guess one out of three isn't all bad.
Hardware Requirements
WebFree supports any Macintosh CPU which has an Internet
connection via either serial, Ethernet, or other means. WebFree has
been tested most extensively on 68040 machines and later. Non-PowerPC
configurations may have some performance problems with excessive
numbers of regular expression blockers. Reducing the number of
blockers will improve performance.
Software Requirements
WebFree requires System 7.1 or later, and MacTCP 2.0.6 or Open
Transport 1.1 or later. Most testing has been done on System 7.6 and
Mac OS 8 with both Open Transport and MacTCP configurations. OT/PPP
and FreePPP have been tested for compatibility.
Web Browser Requirements
WebFree has been designed to work best with Microsoft Internet
Explorer 3.0 or later and Netscape Navigator/Communicator 3.0 or
later. WebFree also works with Cyberdog 1.2 and 2.0, as well as
Explorer 2.1, and Netscape 2.0, and with the AOL web browser in AOL
3.0. Testing has not been done with versions earlier than this, or
with other browsers. WebFree is not compatible with MacWeb.
Memory Requirements
WebFree should occupy no more than 200k of System Heap RAM on your
computer.
Disk Requirements
WebFree occupies under 200k of disk space.
Registration information
You may use WebFree at no charge for 30 days. After this
point, you are required to register by sending the author US$20.
Visit
http://www.falken.net/webfree/
for details.
By registering, you'll be added to the WebFree e-mail list. You'll
receive notification of future upgrades and other information related
to WebFree. Make sure you include an e-mail address when registering.
Registered users will receive maintenance releases (1.x) at no
charge.
Site licenses are available. Information is available at
http://www.falken.net/webfree/
.
WebFree cannot be redistributed in any form without prior consent of
the author.
If you are interested in a custom application of WebFree, or similar,
technologies, contact the author for information on consulting or
customization of Internet tools.
License agreement / warranty
Please read this warranty carefully before using WebFree. By using
WebFree, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this warranty
license. If you do not agree to the terms of this warranty license,
promptly remove WebFree from your computer.
WebFree is supplied as is. Steven Falkenburg hereby disclaims all
warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied,
including without limitation any implied warranties of
merchantability, satisfactory quality, and fitness for a particular
purpose. Steven Falkenburg does not warrant that the functions
contained in WebFree will meet your requirements, or that the
operation of WebFree will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that
defects in WebFree will be corrected. Furthermore, Steven Falkenburg
does not warrant or make any representations regarding the use or the
results of the use of WebFree or related documentation in terms of
their correctness, accuracy, reliability, or otherwise. Under no
circumstances, including negligence, shall Steven Falkenburg be
liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect, or
similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, or for any
claim by any other party, even if Steven Falkenburg, or an agent of
Steven Falkenburg has been advised of the possibility of such
damages. In no event shall Steven Falkenburg's liability for any
damages ever exceed the price paid for the license to use WebFree,
regardless of the form of the claim. The person using WebFree bears
all risk as to the quality and performance of WebFree. No dolphins
were harmed in the production of WebFree. I can't believe you read
this far.
By registering or using WebFree, you agree that any visual
differences in web pages caused by WebFree are fully the
responsibility of you, the customer, and not of WebFree, or its
author. Using WebFree to block advertisements added by no-fee ISPs is
in violation of the WebFree license.
WebFree registration entitles you to use the version you registered
(and any future 1.x releases) for an unlimited amount of time. The
author will make every effort to support registered users for a
period of two years after registration.
WebFree is provided with RESTRICTED RIGHTS. Use, duplication, or
disclosure by the Government is subject to restrictions as set forth
in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and
Computer Software clause at DFARS 252.227-7013.
Contractor/manufacturer is Steven Falkenburg, P.O. Box 937,Los
Altos,CA 94023.
More fine print
Regular Expression Library copyright notice
Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994 Henry Spencer. All rights reserved.
This software is not subject to any license of the American
Telephone
and Telegraph Company or of the Regents of the University of
California.
Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose
on
any computer system, and to alter it and redistribute it, subject
to the following restrictions:
1. The author is not responsible for the consequences of use of
this
software, no matter how awful, even if they arise from flaws in
it.
2. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented, either
by
explicit claim or by omission. Since few users ever read sources,
credits must appear in the documentation.
3. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not
be
misrepresented as being the original software. Since few users
ever read sources, credits must appear in the documentation.
4. This notice may not be removed or altered.