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“Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#61

Post by dredmorbius »

Spivak wrote: post #42
rincebrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem with that is limited levels of trust - e.g. if you have Tor support baked into your browser, you have to trust that the magic "Tor on" button isn't compromised. This isn't a problem that just using Tor in an existing browser install is supposed to solve/be any better at, but it suddenly becomes an incredible target for any state actors/other large-scale entities who know they're going to want to supp…

True, but for casual users, simply being able to natively and transparently access .onion sites would be cool even if it didn't have the privacy of the Tor Browser Bundle.

The increase in Tor traffic would also be hugely useful for users who do depend on Tor. That much more chaff for Eve to have to eliminate.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#62

Post by dredmorbius »

Sylos wrote: post #57
yusee wrote: post #17

Who really thinks that the NSA, Palantir, Mossad, Russia, etc. aren't surveilling the dark net? Privacy is dead.

Of course, they are surveilling the dark net. The idea is that you're anonymized in such a way that you don't have to care about the surveillance.

And/or that the surveilling costs (against you, against others) are raised.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#63

Post by eitland »

x0x0 wrote: post #27
cdmckay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What usability problems did you experience vs Chrome?

not gp, but 1 - crashes, approximately bimonthly. Chrome just doesn't crash for me any more. 2 - very high cpu usage if ff runs long enough. Eventually it will creep up towards consuming 50%+ of a cpu 3 - similar problems with memory usage. Chrome is a pig, but if you close windows, the system gets memory back. FF just doesn't seem to return memory to the system w/o a full restart. 4 - intermittent freezes when loadi…

1. Know the problem but for me it is infrequent enough and the bandaid (restore last session) is good enough that I don't care.

2. Painful for me as well until I I blocked js in google search and search results. (I often have quite a number of tab trees open and the roots are often google search results and they eat CPU if not restrained. I don't know if this is intentional on googles part but it leadt it shows poor attention to QA.)

Just recently learned about about:performance and it is really nice.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#64

Post by int_19h »

yohui wrote: post #31
Manishearth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the post? They're not talking about giving Firefox a "tor mode". The Tor browser uses Firefox under the hood with a few add-on and flipped default settings. Currently, it uses a fork of Firefox with slight modifications (like the ability to disable mathml). They intend to make it so that this fork is unnecessary. The Tor browser will probably continue to be something you need to i…

I think some people read the title ( Mozilla: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser” ) and assumed Mozilla wants to incorporate all the Tor Browser's features. A closer look at the link should make it clear that the changes being discussed are more specific. It's almost clickbait.

I've interpreted the title that way, too, but partly because it might actually make sense.

Consider this. Firefox peaked a while ago; since then, Chrome ate every other browser's lunch, and the only browser that had user share declining faster than Firefox was IE (but even so, IE still has more users). Google has the brand recognition on their side, and on top of that, they have actually made a browser that "just works" for 99% of people out there, the way Firefox never quite did.

Since contesting Chrome's market share is rather pointless, Firefox needs a niche of its own now. Integrating Tor in a seamless way would be a great opportunity to create one.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#65

Post by eitland »

Fej wrote: post #14

This would be a miracle for privacy advocates. However, I'm worried that Mozilla could become irrelevant in the meantime. I say this as a die-hard Firefox user (I even refuse to use any of the forks that remove the branding). Mozilla needs to be making moves that keep them relevant. This move is great for some privacy-minded folks who don't know that the Tor Browser Bundle exists, but unfortunately... most people don…

> They need to start acting like the situation is getting dire.

We might start by start offering free mandatory history lessons everytime anyone uncritically evangelizes for Chrome or create anything that "works best in IE^h^hChrome".

Or continue to remind those poor souls that their browser still doesn't support real extensions after all these years ;-)

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#66

Post by justinlardinois »

peteretep wrote: post #53
Fej wrote: post #14

This would be a miracle for privacy advocates. However, I'm worried that Mozilla could become irrelevant in the meantime. I say this as a die-hard Firefox user (I even refuse to use any of the forks that remove the branding). Mozilla needs to be making moves that keep them relevant. This move is great for some privacy-minded folks who don't know that the Tor Browser Bundle exists, but unfortunately... most people don…

> most people don't care about > their privacy online Apple are betting they will do, and I think that's prescient. Only need a few more Ashley Madisons to see a sea change in this area, and a browser that's been ahead of the curve for a long time has a lot to gain.

I'm not sure Ashley Madison is the best example. When that leak happened, a lot of the public's reaction was along the lines of "they were doing something wrong, so they deserved it."

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#67

Post by justinlardinois »

discreditable wrote: post #28
cdmckay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What usability problems did you experience vs Chrome?

Granted, this is non-default config. When blocking third-party cookies, Chrome shows a little icon which you can click to whitelist blocked cookies. There is no such Firefox option that I've found yet. It's also a lot easier to toggle javascript for individual sites in Chrome without extensions.

I agree, that's a great feature, and one that I wish Firefox had.

I ended up switching back to allowing all cookies because my whitelist kept getting deleted (probably a bug) but when it works, it's wonderful.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#68

Post by justinlardinois »

neoncontrails wrote: post #47
zorgmonkey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To change the default search engine you can click the magnifying glass and then click Change Search Settings from there you can set the default search engine.

I know how to change the default search engine, but the settings don't persist from session to session (at least not when the browser is launched from Selenium).

I'm pretty sure you can configure which profile Selenium launches with, and change that profile to use Google as the search engine.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#69

Post by ak4g »

Sylos wrote: post #39
discreditable wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted, this is non-default config. When blocking third-party cookies, Chrome shows a little icon which you can click to whitelist blocked cookies. There is no such Firefox option that I've found yet. It's also a lot easier to toggle javascript for individual sites in Chrome without extensions.

This is arguable in my opinion. Someone who wants to block third-party Cookies or JavaScript shouldn't have any trouble with installing extensions.

Now you've forced me to make at at least two more decisions: to open up addons.mozilla to find a cookie-management extension, and to open up addons.mozilla to find a javascript-permissions-management extension.

At each of these interactions, I would be confronted with the worst possible next-actionable-step: a large, seemingly unbounded number of options. Picking any of them then requires an additional interaction to confirm, possibly whilst (realistically speaking) disregarding scary-looking security warnings about what the extension will be able to do with my first-born child.

Of course, IRL, users respond as you'd expect when given such immediate negative feedback. They will make it through at most one forced-decision interaction. By the time they hit #2, the user's goal will become "install Chrome", not "figure out which extension to install next".

It's really important to recognize here that the extension search/installation/configuration user flow is more-or-less indistinguishable from actively punishing the user for using firefox. Oh, so you want to use firefox, and actually do something? Kindly direct this barrage of STOP NO DONT feedback to your decision-making apparatus until it comes around to it's senses and installs something, anything else.

Re: “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

#70

Post by dingaling »

eitland wrote: post #63
x0x0 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not gp, but 1 - crashes, approximately bimonthly. Chrome just doesn't crash for me any more. 2 - very high cpu usage if ff runs long enough. Eventually it will creep up towards consuming 50%+ of a cpu 3 - similar problems with memory usage. Chrome is a pig, but if you close windows, the system gets memory back. FF just doesn't seem to return memory to the system w/o a full restart. 4 - intermittent freezes when loadi…

1. Know the problem but for me it is infrequent enough and the bandaid (restore last session) is good enough that I don't care. 2. Painful for me as well until I I blocked js in google search and search results. (I often have quite a number of tab trees open and the roots are often google search results and they eat CPU if not restrained. I don't know if this is intentional on googles part but it leadt it shows poor…

The burning of CPU cycles whilst idling on Google's result page is the most infuriating bug in Firefox but doesn't seem to have been accorded any priority. It has persisted for at least three years.

https://support.mozilla.org/fr/questions/965360

Unfortunately I usually only remember to close the results tabs when my fan spins-up.

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