URL rewriters and redirectors are third party, independent helper programs that we can use with Squid to modify or rewrite requests from clients. In most cases, we try to redirect a client to a different web page or resource from the one that was initially requested by the client.
The interesting part is that URL rewriters can be coded in any programming language. URL rewriters are run as independent processes and communicate with Squid using standard I/O.
URL rewriters provide a totally new area of opportunity as we can redirect clients to custom error pages for different scenarios, redirect users to local mirrors of websites or software repositories, block advertisements with small blank images, and so on.
Squid doesn't have any URL rewriters by default as we are supposed to write our own URL rewriters because the possibilities are enormous. It is also possible to download URL rewriters written by others and use them right away. We'll learn about how to use or...