Mike Perry:
Tor Browser 4.5a5 is available at: https://people.torproject.org/~mikeperry/builds/4.5a5-build6/
This release will be the last alpha in the 4.5 series. We hope to release 4.5-stable in mid-April.
This is my first look at the 4.5 series ...
Primarily, this release features improvements to the security slider to provide descriptions of the security levels and to make use of our new prefs to disable SVG and MathML.
I like the slider, but what's the rationale behind blocking JAR files? If it is to stop execution by the browser (but Java is already blocked, right?) then I would make this a default setting.
I like the "new circuit for site" and "network settings" options from the onion icon.
The release also features a new launcher for Linux that allows users to launch TBB from the desktop/file manager as well as from the shell (#13375), and it creates shortcuts to the desktop and start menu on Windows (#14688).
It also contains code to cause all window resizes to become rounded to 200x100 multiples (#14429), and has fixes for the circuit display UI.
I find this somewhat annoying as I have a small screen. Is it possible to report a different size? (I think I remember a discussion that it's not simple, but though it is worth asking.)
Finally, it has code to try to avoid suddenly changing the circuit while a site is actively in use (#15482). That code in particular is in need of testing.
This is a nice feature!
* Bug 14324: Show HS circuit in Tor circuit display * Bug 15086: Handle RTL text in Tor circuit display * Bug 14937: Show meek and flashproxy bridges in tor circuit display * Bugs 13891+15207: Fix exceptions/errors in circuit display with bridges
This circuit display is excellent! I still use Vidalia from time to time, but this may be a good replacement.
- Bug 12468: Only print/write log messages if launched with --debug
- Windows
--debug works well!
Other regular tests all seem OK and it works with Torsocks. Nice job!