[tor-project] PieroV's Monthly Status Report, April 2024

[Pier Angelo Vendrame]

Hi everyone!
Here is my status report for April 2024.

This month, I explored the automation possibilities I mentioned last month.
I wrote a script [0] that automatically rebases a few branches on top of 
gecko-dev/esr115 [1], cherry-picks commits from our default+maintenance 
branches, and moves them to the appropriate position of the patchset.
In this way, when Mozilla tags a new release, our new branches will be 
ready without us doing anything.
I'm still testing that everything works as expected, so I'm running the 
script manually. But the following step would be to run it automatically 
and regularly.
Also, we could modify it to send us a notification when a new Firefox 
tag is published.

I also wrote a script to automate release preparations [2], but it's 
still under review.
This script will check for new releases of our dependencies and update 
our build configuration and changelogs automatically.
We already had a script to create changelogs from linked GitLab issues, 
but we had to add updates manually. This, and a few other details, will 
be automated by the script, too.

Then, I addressed the various comments on the MR to improve error 
handling in the TorConnect module [3] I mentioned in my previous report.

In addition, I started working on Mullvad Browser's Windows installer 
[4] again. sajolida has prepared some wireframes on how to structure it, 
and I tried to check what's possible with NSIS.

I helped with the releases for this month. I rebased both the release 
and the alpha channel and backported some fixes from alpha to stable. 
I'm also continuing my efforts to keep a branch on top of Firefox's 
rapid release and to (slowly but steadily) address fingerprinting 
issues. And since the next Firefox ESR (128) is going to be nightly in a 
couple of weeks [5], I restarted my uplift effort [6] as well.

Finally, I made some quick fixes: a fallback mechanism to show the 
circuit display also when the bridge lines don't have a fingerprint 
(e.g., with conjure) [7], a patch for our Japanese localization that 
only partially worked on macOS [8], and more.

Best,
Pier

[0] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/pierov/lazy-scripts/-/blob/main/rebase-tool/rebase-tool.py
[1] https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev/tree/esr115
[2] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_requests/958
[3] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/merge_requests/968
[4] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/mullvad-browser/-/issues/200
[5] https://whattrainisitnow.com/release/?version=128
[6] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40789#note_3020040
[7] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/merge_requests/1006
[8] 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42535