Size of Tor Browser in 4k screen needs to be changed

I am using a 4K screen and I’ve always been struggling with the 1000x1000 screen size because it stands out. Most user with 1920x1080 which makes their Tor Browser size to be 1000x900.
May I ask the developer group to make the maximum size of the Tor Browser Window size in Qubes OS whonix to be 1000x900?

The Whonix project doesn’t develop Tor Browser.
And unfortunately neither has the resources to fork and fix Tor Browser.

https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Free_Support_Principle applies. This issue is also happening with

  • Tor Browser on Debian
  • Tor Browser in a Qubes Debian based App Qube

Whonix isn’t required for bug reproduction.

Realistically, this issue could only be solved by:

  • Tor Browser
  • the virtualizer: Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any virtualizer that would be interested in adding any features beneficial for online privacy/anonymity such as enforcement of popular screen resolutions.

Related:

Some sources on the internet claim that the command-line options -width -height allow specification of the initial window dimensions of Firefox window.

Tested this with start-tor-browser script and unfortunately it has no effect. Also tested with release build of Firefox and is the same. My guess is if the option did work at some point it was quietly removed.

Forking Tor Browser itself sounds like a labyrinth task.

Outside of ugly X11 wrapper hacks I think the real solution would have to be in collaboration. I know the Tor Browser developers are busy however if someone from the Whonix or greater privacy communities discussed what would need to be completed for such feature to exist in Tor Browser and assisted in development that would be amicable.

Thank you

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen evidence that such a someone with the required skill exists and/or is willing.

Clarification:
And unfortunately the Whonix project doesn’t have the resources to:

  • A) fork Tor Browser,
  • B) contribute fixes to Tor Browser.

“fork Tor Browser,” is just 3 words and “contribute fixes to Tor Browser.” is just 5 words. But both expand to technically highly complex issues.

A) requires a highly skilled probably full time developer, I guess on the level of silicon valley salary monetary requirements.

B) is kinda similar to A). It would require a very high technical skill and on of this top adequate social skills. The merging of a patch requires approval of The Tor Project (TPO). Question is if TPO would even have the resources to review/merge such as patch and keep maintaining it.

The problem is, once Firefox makes changes to related code, such as patch would require non-trivial updates or a full rewrite depending on the changes by Firefox. So merging this upstream in Firefox would be a more sustainable solutions but then might require social skills of getting such a patch merged in Firefox that might not be interested in such a patch. Submitting such as patch to either Tor Browser or Firefox would require either an or a few in-person meetings to discuss this as well as lots of textual, asynchronous communications over long periods of time. Sometimes it takes weeks or months to get some feedback for a highly technical issue or patch.

Once such a feature is merged, I expect follow-up issues / improvements being required.

Privacy unfortunately isn’t in high demand. On the contrary… (Internet Corporations and Privacy Concerns) Too few users on the internet are aware of privacy issues, care about privacy issues, demand, funding, develop privacy technology. Tracking technology is in high demand and profitable. Web browsers such as Firefox don’t prioritize privacy. Rather browsers become more and more complex, become almost operating systems with DRM, camera/microphone/GPS support perfectly suitable for SaaS (Software as a Service) / SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute).

Therefore I am very doubtful this is magically going to happen. This / similar issues / tickets are known / open for 10+ years. This is bigger than a bug report / feature request. Kinda a request for new project for a privacy-by-default browser developed at a faster speed than Tor Browser.

This raises the question how much can be accomplished while being based on Firefox anyhow.

Kinda a request to fork a browser and not attempt to get any patches merged upstream. How realistic is it a feature request “remove all Google integration from Firefox”, “disable all telemetry by default, don’t use networking by default without user requesting a website” or “be a browser, not an operating system” getting accepted? Seems futile. Or a request to develop a new privacy/security focussed browser (browser-not-operating-system) from scratch.

Would need the #youbroketheinternet (perhaps check this search term on search engines) or similar movement getting traction.

Maybe gopher movement is currently kinda reborn and getting more traction?

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I always admire your write-ups with the ‘big-picture’ of privacy :slight_smile:

I was not saying I was going to do it at this time. Just a prompt to do some preliminary research and report.

I have not researched the Firefox code extensively but presumably during process start there is a ‘handler’ the creates the initial window so someone would need to investigate where it happens and what would need to change for implementation of ‘better’ window sizes for fingerprinting-resistance. If this challenge is overcome the next would be enticing TPO to integrate the work into Tor Browser.

Also agree Whonix providing own distribution of Tor Browser is a project of itself and best avoided. Myself already has ideas on other contributions to Whonix that are more palatable so will focus on those as a higher-priority.

If someone else reading this wants to take the lead would be willing to provide guidance towards such feature.

Thank you

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Security/Tor Uplift - MozillaWiki → Quote Tor Browser: a legacy of advancing private browsing innovation | The Tor Project

Project Uplift does not exist anymore,

But Tor Browser is still carrying dozens of patches around that have yet to be upstreamed to Firefox,

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1260929 open since 6 years but assigned to nobody. Following the links under Depends on: is also interesting. Some issues are open for 6-8 years and assigned to nobody.