[tor-talk] Dropping Tor Browser support for Mac OSX 10.6?

[Sebastian Hahn]

On 03 Sep 2014, at 17:08, Tor Talker <tortalker at hidemeta.com> wrote:

> [Short answer]
> As an individual user, I don't need Tor on Mac OS 10.6, but as a developer of a soon to be released Tor-dependent project I would like to see support continue.
> 
> [Long answer]
> We are developing a system called HideMeta that relies on Tor and other proven security components to encrypt and anonymize communications.  We are packaging the system as interpreted source code so there is no need to trust binary executables.  Anyone can inspect the code they are actually running to verify it does what we claim.  Therefore, we rely on Tor support for the operating systems on which we run.
> 
> If the Tor project abandons OS X 10.6 (which a significant number of users are stuck with due to lack 64-bit processors or the need for features like Rosetta), we will either have to advise against using Hidemeta or installing an outdated Tor.  In the face of pervasive, network-wide eavesdropping, our system gains strength with the number of active users.  Our view is that even on an insecure OS, HideMeta users are still increasing their personal privacy, making pervasive surveillance less effective, and increasing the security of whistle blowers, journalists, dissidents, and others who legitimately need strong privacy and, hopefully, use hardened operating systems.  For us, supporting a widely used OS like 10.6 is a good thing, even if it has been deprecated.
> 
> I'll also note that we do not need the Tor Browser.  Availability of a standalone Tor executable for OS X would be better for us. 

You can easily build a 32bit Tor executable. This is not about
making Tor incompatible with OSX 10.6, only about not providing
Tor Browser builds for it anymore.