[guardian-dev] Development of Orfox

Nathan of Guardian nathan at guardianproject.info
Thu Jun 1 13:45:21 EDT 2017


On Thu, Jun 1, 2017, at 01:30 PM, e3b at riseup.net wrote:
> All the sites linked to on https://guardianproject.info/apps/orfox/ are
> inactive. The latest activity seems to have been in late 2016 in
> https://github.com/guardianproject/tor-browser

Yes, that is when we did the last release. That repo merges changes from
Tor Browser's primary repo. More below on how often we need to do that.
 
The official repo is actually: https://github.com/guardianproject/orfox 
which incorporates the build scripts, plugins, etc.

We have also been working to implement the Tor Security Slider in a
mobile add-on format:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/UX/OrfoxSecuritySlider
https://git.synz.io/synzvato/tor-browser-settings

> What are the plans for Orfox? How can I get up to date on the
> development?

Orfox plans, are essential the same as Tor Browser. However, we have
extremely limited resources right now to work on it, and only post new
releases when there is a critical update in Tor Browser. Since Tor is
updated via Orbot itself, there is less need to update Orfox in some
cases, then with Tor Browser (which bundles Tor).

All that said, we need to do a new Orfox release based on:
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-70a4-released

How does that work? Well, in short, we merge in all the changes since
the last tagged Tor Browser release, and first see if any patches they
have created will cause the Firefox/Fennec build for Android to not
work. Second, we then go through any additions or modifications to
network code in the Android/Java layer, to see if we need to disable or
proxy anything to avoid leaks. Third, we build and test the entire
release to see if everything is working as expected, and again to ensure
there are no unexpected leaks or crashes. It is slow and unforgiving
work, and we are always look for more help on that.

The good news is that we are working more closely with the Tor and
Mozilla teams to integrate our mobile work upstream into their repos.
This would mean our ongoing maintenance and updates would be easier.
Help with that is also welcome.

> (I already posted something similar on the tbb-dev mailing list, but
> there was little response.)

I thought I responded there. Perhaps not.

If you want stay in touch more, you can find us in #tor-mobile on IRC
and matrix here:
https://riot.im/app/#/room/#_oftc_#tor-mobile:matrix.org

We are also actively working on iOS Onion Browser efforts, which has
taken our focus a bit away from Orfox, for better or worse. iPhone users
are in real need of a usable, trustworthy Tor based browser, with a
modern user experience, and we are close to providing that with Onion
Browser 2.

+n


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