[tor-talk] To Toggle, or not to Toggle: The End of Torbutton

anonym anonym at lavabit.com
Mon Apr 18 17:50:54 UTC 2011


12/04/11 15:07, Mike Perry:
>> If we migrate to shipping TBB, can we go on maintaining our Tails
>> specific Firefox configuration delta as described above? Will the
>> TBB's Firefox use the standard ways to fetch system-wide
>> configuration? (I guess this should be a opt-in option, probably not
>> toggle-able from the GUI, as the TBB usually wants to be as much
>> independent from the host OS as possible.)
> 
> I would prefer it if we can unify our prefs.js use, but I guess you
> guys may want to support more things. I think with effort you can even
> get flash running safely under a default configuration...

Exactly, and there are other things (extensions mainly, see below) that
TBB likely will not include but we want. I think it'd be better if we
wouldn't feel constrained like this. If we'd privide a patch adding a
"--use-system-default-profile" parameter that make Tor browser look for
the default profile in the vanilla Firefox directory, which ought to be
nigh trivial, wouldn't that make everyone happy?

>> Is it imaginable to see the new TBB make use of extensions that are
>> installed system-wide? (probably opt-in as well)
> 
> Hrmm.. I don't think this will be the case... System extensions seem a
> bad idea to source by default.. In fact, we should ensure we do not do
> this, due to the potential to source distro branding extensions that
> damage anonymity...
> 
> Can we figure out a way to come close to a common set of extensions
> and configs, so the set of extensions you must add to TBB is minimal?
> 
> Do you have a list of your extensions anywhere?

At the moment (Tails 0.7) we have these extensions that are not in TBB:
  * Adblock Plus. Really helps reducing page load times.
  * amnesia branding.
  * CS Lite.
  * FireGPG. Sadly discontinued, so this one will likely be removed at
    some point.
  * FoxyProxy. We use this for having I2P working at the same time as
    Tor for the rest of the Internet. And future FTP support.
  * Monkeysphere.

We are considering adding:
  * NoScript.
  * BetterPrivacy. If we ever add a flash plugin (a Free one, though).

I think it's safe to say that TBB will never include all these so the
set will not be that minimal. Again I feel we'd like not to be
restricted, so what about us providing a patch adding a
"--use-system-extensions" parameter (or a prefs.js option if that'd work
(?)) that makes Tor browser look for extensions in the vanilla Firefox
directories?

Cheers!

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