<!-- File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/history.sgml,v $ Purpose : Entity included in other project documents. $Id: history.sgml,v 2.7 2009/02/22 11:05:21 fabiankeil Exp $ Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/ See LICENSE. ====================================================================== This file used for inclusion with other documents only. ====================================================================== If you make changes to this file, please verify the finished docs all display as intended. This file is included into: user-manual developer-manual faq webserver/index.sgml --> <para> A long time ago, there was the <ulink url="http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html"><application>Internet Junkbuster</application></ulink>, by Anonymous Coders and <ulink url="http://www.junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>. This saved many users a lot of pain in the early days of web advertising and user tracking. </para> <para> But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for forcing ads on users, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for tracking them, keeps evolving. Unfortunately, the <application>Internet Junkbuster</application> did not. Version 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official <ulink url="http://www.junkbusters.com/ijbdist.html#release">release</ulink> available from <ulink url="http://www.junkbusters.com">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>. Fortunately, it had been released under the GNU <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GPL</ulink>, which allowed further development by others. </para> <para> So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already replace banners with a transparent image, and had a first version of pop-up killing, but it was still very closely based on the original, with all its limitations, such as the lack of HTTP/1.1 support, flexible per-site configuration, or content modification. The last release from this effort was version 2.0.2-10, published in 2000. </para> <para> Then, some <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/copyright.html#AUTHORS">developers</ulink> picked up the thread, and started turning the software inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/introduction.html#FEATURES">new features</ulink> along the way. </para> <para> The result of this is <application>Privoxy</application>, whose first stable version, 3.0, was released August, 2002. <!-- Cautious!!!!!!!!! ;) --> </para>