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Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

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Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#11

Post by chimeracoder »

tedks wrote: post #5

It would be so great if Mozilla integrated Tor. Beyond the curse of success mentioned in the article, it would really lower the burden on the Tor developers, who have had to support a lot of patches from Firefox that Mozilla have been slow to merge. My main concern is that this will be hidden behind an option or an "extreme private" mode -- Tor seems too high-latency for the typical use-case of private browsing (imag…

> If you run a web service and would like to provide high-security anonymous access, consider running an Exit Enclave -- a Tor exit configured to exit only to your site. If Tor detects that your exit and your site share an IP address, it will automatically extend the normally 3-hop circuit to your node, and the traffic will exit the Tor network on your machine rather than an arbitrary node (which could be malicious).

For what it's worth, DuckDuckGo has done this for the past 4 years[0].

I think StartPage is still the default for the Tor browser bundle, but I'm not sure if they have an exit enclave as well.

[0] http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/08/duckduckgo-now-o...

Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#13

Post by wavefunction »

kilovoltaire wrote: post #12

Somewhat relatedly, has Firefox ever considering having a built-in ad blocker? That would really set it apart, in my opinion.

Funny you might mention that:

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Mozil...

Well, more sad than funny.

Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#14

Post by chimeracoder »

kilovoltaire wrote: post #12

Somewhat relatedly, has Firefox ever considering having a built-in ad blocker? That would really set it apart, in my opinion.

Mozilla's funding comes primarily from search partners (namely Google)[0][1] - I don't think they could do this and still survive as a company at this point, sadly.

At the same time, if every Firefox user donated even $1 to Mozilla, they wouldn't need to take this money[2], and could probably be a bit more carefree in these decisions.

[0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2012/f...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox

Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#15

Post by kilovoltaire »

chimeracoder wrote: post #14
kilovoltaire wrote: post #12

Somewhat relatedly, has Firefox ever considering having a built-in ad blocker? That would really set it apart, in my opinion.

Mozilla's funding comes primarily from search partners (namely Google)[0][1] - I don't think they could do this and still survive as a company at this point, sadly. At the same time, if every Firefox user donated even $1 to Mozilla, they wouldn't need to take this money[2], and could probably be a bit more carefree in these decisions. [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2012/f... [1] https://en.…

Haha wow thanks for the info. I had no idea that they're almost entirely funded by an ad company (Google); so much for that idea!

Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#17

Post by [deleted] »

tedks wrote: post #5

It would be so great if Mozilla integrated Tor. Beyond the curse of success mentioned in the article, it would really lower the burden on the Tor developers, who have had to support a lot of patches from Firefox that Mozilla have been slow to merge. My main concern is that this will be hidden behind an option or an "extreme private" mode -- Tor seems too high-latency for the typical use-case of private browsing (imag…

[deleted]

Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#18

Post by wtallis »

oceanstone wrote: post #10
tedks wrote: post #5

It would be so great if Mozilla integrated Tor. Beyond the curse of success mentioned in the article, it would really lower the burden on the Tor developers, who have had to support a lot of patches from Firefox that Mozilla have been slow to merge. My main concern is that this will be hidden behind an option or an "extreme private" mode -- Tor seems too high-latency for the typical use-case of private browsing (imag…

> My main concern is that this will be hidden behind an option or an "extreme private" mode To add to your point, effectively using Tor means disabling JavaScript.

Why do you say that? According to the Tor Project FAQ for their browser bundle, they leave JavaScript enabled. The only problem they mention is that selectively allowing scripts via NoScript permissions leaks information, so it's an all-or-nothing decision with regards to third-party scripts for any given site and they choose to make the default the one that breaks fewer sites. (And really, you're still free to block scripts from any third-party site that has an effective surrogate script bundled with NoScript.)

Re: Tor executive director hints at Firefox integration

#20

Post by robertfw »

tedks wrote: post #5

It would be so great if Mozilla integrated Tor. Beyond the curse of success mentioned in the article, it would really lower the burden on the Tor developers, who have had to support a lot of patches from Firefox that Mozilla have been slow to merge. My main concern is that this will be hidden behind an option or an "extreme private" mode -- Tor seems too high-latency for the typical use-case of private browsing (imag…

I hadn't heard of Exit Enclaves before, when I looked it up in the docs [0] it appears that they are not going to be supported in versions > 0.2.3.x.

[0] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ExitEnclav...:

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