Tor Browser in a dvm: Whonix Documentation Contradicting itself. What to do?

Qubes-Whonix
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There is some contradicting literature in the Whonix documentation that makes it unclear weather to use Tor Browser in a DisposableVM or not.

In the Tor Browser Whonix Documentation located at: wwwDOTwhonixDOTorg/wiki/Qubes/Tor_Browser

on the TOP of the page (located at : wwwDOTwhonixDOTorg/wiki/Qubes/Tor_Browser#Update_Tor_Browser) it says:

Update Tor Browser
Do not run Tor Browser in a Template (whonix-workstation-17) or Disposable Template (whonix-workstation-17-dvm)!

Clearly stating NOT to run Tor Browser in a Disposable VM.

Yet, on the BOTTOM of the page, in the “Comparison of Applications, Recommended and Discouraged Use” table, it says:

Tor Browser
Useful to run in:

  1. Whonix-Workstation App Qube (anon-whonix)
  2. Disposables

In addition to these contradicting statements, I noticed a message in my whonix-workstation-17 Template VM’s xfce terminal after running the following command:

update-torbrowser --resume

it outputs this message:

INFO: Finished installing ‘Tor Browser’. Can be found in ‘/var/cache/tb-binary/.tb/tor-browser’. Not asking to start Tor Browser, because running in a Template.
To run ‘Tor Browser’, start an App Qube, Standalone or Disposable, then run:
torbrowser

Again, here, it says it’s okay to run Tor Browser in a Disposable (such as whonix-workstation-17-dvm).

QUESTION:

The Whonix documentation above says that Tor Browser shouldn’t be run in whonix-workstation-17-dvm, and yet, it also says Tor Browser is “Useful to run in Disposables”. Isn’t whonix-workstation-17-dvm a disposable? If so, should we or should we not run Tor Browser in whonix-workstation-17-dvm or any other DisposableVM’s for that matter? The documentation is unclear and has conflicting bits of information. Please advise!

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Do not run Tor Browser in the Disposable Template VM (“-dvm”), but do run Tor Browser in Disposable VMs (“Disposables”) spawned from that Template.

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The Qubes nomenclature around disposables / disposable templates / disposable VMs is confusing IMO, but it’s ingrained, probably no changing it now. Disposable templates in Qubes like default-dvm, whonix-workstation-17-dvm, maybe would have been better named as *-dt (for “disposable template”).

Actual disposables have names like disp2079. If you’re using standard Qubes, then through the GUI you can get a Whonix workstation disposable by selecting whonix-workstation-17-dvm (note the italics) in the launch menu.

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Wiki has been improved just now.

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:+1: A lot clearer now I think, when compared to the most recent snapshot on Wayback Machine

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