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

Kraktus kraktus at googlemail.com
Thu Apr 21 18:22:40 UTC 2011


Well, if I had an 8-core machine with 4+GB RAM, or even a single-core
machine with over 1 GHz and at least 1GB RAM, I'd probably have four
browser profiles for Firefox alone: one for Tor (Torbutton or whatever
you guys decide to use, plus Noscript, AdBlockPlus, Cookie Monster,
etc.), one for JonDo (with JonDoFox), one more complicated setup that
allows me to whitelist sites I trust, e.g. my bank, while still making
sure that any third party or other unwhitelisted content is loaded
through a proxy (using FoxyProxy, Noscript, etc.), and a final one for
guests only that does not use a proxy but does have AdBlockPlus,
noscript (blacklist mode), Cookie Monster (blacklist mode) and
RefControl (delete referrer when switching to a new domain)... for
basic privacy protection that won't drive my guests nuts.

However, seeing has how my computer is single core, less than 1 GHz,
and has less than 1GB RAM, running one instance of a modern browser is
hard enough on the poor thing. Multiple browsers, let alone full-blown
virtualization, isn't a realistic option.

Thus I am using JonDoFox, because it lets me switch between JonDo,
Tor, a third proxy of my choosing (if desired) and no proxy, without
having to run multiple browsers. True, there are a few features I
might wish for, my nothing major than impacts my usability in any
significant way.

I think the key here is that there isn't one solution that will work
for everyone. By all means create a nice Tor browser, designed to be
used for Tor only. This is probably the best thing for most people are
newer hardware who don't have to use any special accessible software
for the blind or whatever. But document the changes you make and what
people using other browsers would have to do in order to blend in with
the Tor crowd as best they can even if they are using just a single
instance of Firefox for all browsing, some other browser that works on
their platform (Firefox doesn't run everywhere), some text or
braille-only browser (if they are blind or just don't want a GUI), or
some special browser-for-the-blind, or whatever. Yes, I realize many
browsers cannot be configured to provide the same level of security as
custom Firefox, at least not without delving into the source code, but
not everyone has the hardware/software/ability to see/financial/other
resources to have an ideal setup.

Myself, I will probably continue to use JonDoFox, unless they remove
their proxy switcher, it which case I'll probably be off using some
other third party solution custom configured to meet my needs.


More information about the tor-talk mailing list