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Tor Executive Director Hints At Firefox Integration
blottsie writes: Several major tech firms are in talks with Tor to include the software in products that can potentially reach over 500 million Internet users around the world. One particular firm wants to include Tor as a "private browsing mode" in a mainstream Web browser, allowing users to easily toggle connectivity to the Tor anonymity network on and off. "They very much like Tor Browser and would like to ship it to their customer base," Tor executive director Andrew Lewman wrote, explaining the discussions but declining to name the specific company. "Their product is 10-20 percent of the global market, this is of roughly 2.8 billion global Internet users." The product that best fits Lewman's description, by our estimation, is Mozilla Firefox, the third-most popular Web browser online today and home to, you guessed it, 10 to 20 percent of global Internet users.
So, the very thing which could protect users privacy by default, on a massive sacle, almost so transparently as to be irrelevent. Possibly the biggest privacy breakthrough in the history of the internet, and your first thought is concern at increased data throughput?
No wonder privacy is in such a bad state!
Firefox has been well over 20% for years.
IE dropped below 20 percent two years ago.
Of course, you can pick different stats to prove pretty much anything when it comes to the web.
Using W3 counter it could be IE, it could be Safari, it could be Firefox.
But recently both Google and Apple have thrown down the gauntlet with respect to requests by the DoJ. Microsoft could very well be taking a different tack; having your browsing routed through TOR makes it harder to know the contents - until you upload it to "the Cloud" and it sits on the servers unencrypted.
Unleash the "Microsoft is in bed with the NSA" hounds.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Nah-uh. Private browsing mode is for reading the New York Times.
I first though that can't be right but wow, you're right! Looks like the only way now in versions 23+ is through: about:config
https://support.mozilla.org/en...
WTF?
Mozilla: keeps making Firefox obsolete -- because you don't know what the fuck you are doing anymore with UI !
Talk about the Mozilla team not having a CLUE by allowing this misinformation ...
> also Note that turning off Javascript has little benefit (it isn't very insecure and cant really take control of the system),
https://support.mozilla.org/en...
private browsing mode prevents firefox from leaving usage tracks on your HD, that is all. Nothing more.
Once you close firefox after using private browsing mode, your computer has no records of your actions. No cookies, history, cache, html5 cookies, anything.
It doesn't stop someone from sniffing network traffic, but its still insanely useful
I'd love to see more people using Tor, but the experience has to change a lot before we can do that.
Being anonymous and secure on Tor is not easy. It's a major inconvenience to disabling browser features like Javascript, and it requires firm behavioral changes from the user.
Putting a mainstream user into the same environment is simply not going to work.
You already contribute financially to illegal activities. You do business with a business which is used by criminals, saving the criminals money due to economies of scale for said business -- examples: internet, phone, mail, transportation. If you think it is acceptable to do this because it has a lot of legitimate users, what makes it different for Tor? Lots of people value their privacy, especially now that the NSA is unconstitutionally searching all your unencrypted communication. If locks are to keep honest people honest, encryption is to keep dishonest government slightly more honest.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I do not want Tor "integrated" in Firefox. Nor should ANYONE. This is why they make addons and extensions. I am getting tired of them adding more and more to Firefox. The whole POINT of Firefox was to be lean and fast and shed all the "integrated" extras of previous browsers. We don't need it to continue bloating up, taking more space, getting more complicated, and using more resources.
1) Stop adding stuff that can be in an addon instead.
2) Stop trying to turn Firefox into Chrome.
3) Stop removing user settings to allow users to control what they want (like placement of tabs and such).
4) Remove firebug/debugger, whatever you call it and put it in an addon where it belongs.
Tor is ineffective if Javascript is enabled
I don't know what you're talking about. Tor's FAQ notes that they leave Javascript enabled by default.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
For lots of people, the computer is the browser. That's what Chrombooks are for. I don't want that, but I already know that I'm not in anyone's big target demographic; I'm in the marginal group.
Why is Snark Required?
Why would Tor want to work with a browser whose market share is in decline?
I would think a dumber (more ignorant?) statement would be the one that responds to obvious sarcasm as though it's serious.
Using Tor is just half the equation here - people should be made aware that the moment they connect to their FB or GMail accounts, their privacy is destroyed, Tor or no Tor. I propose a proxy that would clean up all outgoing communications of private data such as emails and names. That, coupled with Tor, would mean privacy.
All websites use Javascript now, having an option to turn it off is meaningless.
What you need is either a fine-grained javascript blocker (NoScript addon for Firefox) or a web browser that's more suited for you (Lynx).
Otherwise known as porn mode.
Many government agencies and businesses have Firefox installed as a primary or as a secondary browser available for use (in addition to IE of course).
They also have policies against the use of proxies, p2p, etc.
If TOR is included within Firefox and they don't give administrators a way to keep people from using it on the job you can bet they will jettison Firefox as an option for their users.
me as well.
unfortunately domestic abuse is a real issue. So are helicopter parents, and police states and places on earth are still run by authoritarian regimes.
The world can get pretty scary sometimes, but its good that we have software that rises to meet the challenges.