[tbb-bugs] #25658 [Applications/Tor Browser]: Activity 2.1: Improve user understanding and user control by clarifying Tor Browser's security features

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#25658: Activity 2.1: Improve user understanding and user control by clarifying Tor
Browser's security features
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 Reporter:  isabela                              |          Owner:
                                                 |  antonela
     Type:  project                              |         Status:
                                                 |  needs_information
 Priority:  High                                 |      Milestone:
Component:  Applications/Tor Browser             |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                               |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  ux-team, GeorgKoppen201812,          |  Actual Points:
  TorBrowserTeam201903, tbb-8.5                  |
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                       |        Sponsor:
                                                 |  Sponsor17
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Comment (by gk):

 Replying to [comment:109 antonela]:
 > Replying to [comment:107 gk]:
 >
 > > What I mean is not a redesign of how per-site security settings should
 work but we thought about making site-specific settings _as they are
 available today_ accessible. Ideas we had were outlined in section 2.2 of
 the proposal.
 >
 > Got it! I approached a UI for what is described at 2.2.
 >
 > [[Image(https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/raw-
 attachment/ticket/25658/25658%20-%202.2.png, 700px)]]

 The control center looks good to me. For the URL bar see more below.

 > Questions:
 >
 > - ` By default only the option to temporarily allow JavaScript would be
 visible.` When? On the Default level? Or in all security levels?

 Only when a security level would block it, I think. I think the active
 content one should at least be visible if a user clicked on a click-to-
 play icon and got, e.g. WebGL going. But we could have that for a future
 iteration if we wanted.

 > - What happens when user enable/disable JS or Active Content? Should
 they reload to apply effects?

 Yes.

 > - We cannot prompt users to enable JS for each website who wants to use
 JS. How are we going to balance it? One option could be to not prompt
 users but enable it automatically and giving users visual feedback at the
 URL bar with the colored icon. If this is the road we are going to take,
 then we should expose this in global settings as an opt-in.

 It's meant to be used as a feature for power users, ideally never ever.
 So, no, I would not want to prompt users. I think we could have a little
 icon in the URL bar grayed out, and that's it as an indicator. I wonder
 whether we should put this icon on the right side of the URL bar, though,
 given that users might click on it by accident when they only wanted to
 see the circuit being used.

 > - Can users save trusted sites in any safe way? Those trusted sites
 could have JS enabled, even if the global security level is `Safest`.

 I don't know yet. We could think about saving those permissions in a
 future iteration. In general, I am a bit reluctant to optimize things for
 power users, in particular as the slider should not used that way, or only
 with great care.

 > - The gear icon at the Control Center goes to `about:preferences#privacy
 Permissions`. Should we incorporate JS and Active Content as an option
 there too?

 No. The permissions we give are site-specific (which is why they are in
 the URL bar) but do not apply to the whole browser session (which those on
 the preferences pane do). We should not mix that (in fact one of our big
 goals with the redesign was to make that distinction clearer).

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/25658#comment:111>
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