[tbb-dev] How much the Tor Browser is still a Bundle?

[Mark Smith]

On 3/11/14, 6:30 AM, Georg Koppen wrote:
> Ah, I understood the original question to be more a question for
> developers not one having particular users in mind. While I am inclined
> to agree on your point that users should not care whether they start the
> bundle the browser or whatever I'd be a bit cautious as oversimplifying
> might bite us back. If we only talk about Tor Browser then this might
> make it harder to pinpoint issues the users have as the dev/support
> needs to disentangle "Tor Browser". The other thing is: we offer the Tor
> Browser Bundle for download (and not the Tor Browser). Now, if we
> everywhere else only talk about the Tor Browser (even though "Tor
> Browser Bundle" might be the more appropriate term) the users might
> start asking: "Hey, why do I need to download the Tor Browser Bundle,
> when the Tor Browser is obviously enough?"

Overall, I agree with Lunar and others that most people do not think 
about the pieces underneath.

But if it is ever possible that end-users will want to talk about "the 
Tor Browser" separately from "the Tor Browser Bundle" then we should 
keep the word "bundle" in the name.  If not, simpler is better.

Currently most of our downloads are described as "bundles" because they 
all contain tor plus other software.  For example, go to this page and 
then click one of the OS buttons ("Microsoft Windows") to show what is 
available:

https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en

I guess that is just how things have been done and it is not necessarily 
an argument for what we should do from now on.


>> I don't understand. My proposal was to replace:
>>
>>      Before the Tor Browser Bundle tries…
>>
>> by:
>>
>>      Before the Tor Browser tries…
>>
>> How is this related to the local running Tor?
>
> The bundle connects you to the Tor network, the browser "only" to your
> local Tor running (shipped in the bundle). But as I said, I originally
> read the mail to be from devs for devs. So, for normal users this would
> be hairsplitting.
>
>> Although given that Tails is now using Tor Launcher, not mentioning any
>> specific application here would be the best move.
>
> Yes, that is my "omitting 'Tor Browser Bundle' and rewording the whole
> sentence" idea. Agreed that it would probably be the best thing to do.

I agree that the term "Tor Browser Bundle" is not good for how Tails is 
using Tor Launcher.  But we also need to make sure users are comfortable 
with the first screen they see.  For TBB we want them to know they are 
looking at a screen that is part of the software they just downloaded... 
which is why we branded it "Tor Browser Bundle" via both the logo and 
the text.

We could switch to a more generic Tor branding, e.g., use the onion logo 
and generic text.  But I think for Tor Browser (Bundle) users it would 
be better to keep the product-specific branding.

-- 
Mark Smith
Pearl Crescent
http://pearlcrescent.com/