[tor-bugs] #15482 [Tor]: Don't surprise users with new circuits in the middle of browsing

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#15482: Don't surprise users with new circuits in the middle of browsing
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 Reporter:  mikeperry                            |          Owner:
     Type:  defect                               |  mikeperry
 Priority:  normal                               |         Status:  new
Component:  Tor                                  |      Milestone:
 Keywords:  tbb-usability, tbb-4.5-alpha,        |        Version:
  TorBrowserTeam201503, MikePerry201503          |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:
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 The way Tor handles circuit dirtiness for websites is pretty crappy. See
 #13766.

 However, simply raising the circuit dirtiness timeout has a whole bunch of
 problems. See https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-
 dev/2015-March/008548.html.

 So instead of raising the timeout, let's make normal circuits behave more
 like hidden service circuits: keep resetting their timestamp_dirty every
 time a new stream is attached. This has the effect that a user will never
 suddenly get a new circuit in the middle of actively using a website,
 which will be a huge usability improvement. Still not ideal, but good
 enough to leave the actual circuit dirtiness timeout alone.

 I am going to do this with a TBB-specific Tor patch for now so we can test
 this in TBB 4.5a5. We can then decide if we want to make this a torrc
 option after that.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/15482>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
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