On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 07:02:10PM +0000, Liu, Zhuotao wrote:
I have a problem of understanding how Tor browser interacts with the Tor source code. My understanding is that in order to use Tor, there much be a Tor client instance running locally. But when using Tor browser, I did not notice the existence of Tor client at all (which is good for usability). However, I do not understand how the Tor browser interacts with Tor client in background? Any idea is greatly appreciated. :)
Tor is started by a Firefox addon called Tor Launcher: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorBrowser/Hacking#TorLaun... https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor-launcher.git/tree/
Tor Launcher is what you see when you run Tor Browser for the first time and it gives you the Connect/Configure option. It's also Tor Launcher that draws the progress bar on startup before the browser window appears. You can see Tor Launcher in about:addons (along with NoScript, HTTPS Everywhere, and Torbutton).