I tried to set a homepage at Preferences -> General. the setting is saved but the browser keeps displaying the Whonix start page instead, ignoring my setting.
I guess I can edit the /usr/share/homepage/whonix-welcome-page/whonix.html file itself but looking in /usr/bin/torbroswer it seems as if the homepage set by the user is supposed to work.
running printenv, I don’t see $TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE as an environment variable.
Add that environment variable to your .profile:
echo 'export TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE="www.startpage.com"' >> ~/.profile
Will take effect after next login.
To test immediately, add the variable using:
export TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE="www.startpage.com"
Launch torbrowser from same terminal:
torbrowser
Looks like that wiki page could use an update.
I’m not sure which came first? @Patrick
$TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE or $TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE?
Maybe TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE (/usr/bin/torbrowser) was a workaround until Tor Browser added native support for TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE? Also, whichever one can be sourced from ~/ would be preferable.
Did it work @torbrowser?
entr0py:
Looks like that wiki page could use an update.
I’m not sure which came first? @Patrick
$TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE or $TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE?
I am not sure of the timeline.
Perhaps:
TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE a /usr/bin/torbrowser feature. Ignored when
starting Tor Browser directly through
/home/user/.tb/tor-browser/Browser/start-tor-browser.
TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE a TorButton feature. In theory better than
/home/user/.tb/tor-browser/Browser/start-tor-browser but in practice
there could be a bug in TorButton.
One could investigate using git history and whatnot.
Maybe TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE (/usr/bin/torbrowser) was a workaround until Tor Browser added native support for TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE? Also, whichever one can be sourced from ~/ would be preferable.
TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE=about:blank torbrowser
TB_CUSTOM_HOMEPAGE=about:blank bash -x torbrowser
on a technically level results in executing
x-www-browser about:blank
Which goes through https://github.com/Whonix/open-link-confirmation,
i.e. shows a confirmation popup. Reminds me that it would be cool to
have a user configurable whitelist of links which will not be asked for
confirmation.
x-www-browser about:blank btw works for me.
TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE=about:blank torbrowser doesn’t work for me.
TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE=about:blank /home/user/.tb/tor-browser/Browser/start-tor-browser also doesn’t work
for me. So it’s not a /usr/bin/torbrowser bug.
There could be a non-Whonix specific TorButton bug: “If Tor Browser
prevously started when TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE was set and later changed,
on next Tor Browser start TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE is not adhered”. Anyone
up to investigate outside of Whonix and possibly report to Tor Project?
Setting the environment variable TOR_DEFAULT_HOMEPAGE to a custom
value. This would have a similar effect as setting environment variables
as outlined in Tor Browser Transparent Proxying.
What do we mean with the latter sentence?
it works. it gives the confirmation popup. anyway to get rid of that? it doesn’t show with Whonix start page, and my homepage is a local file as well. no javascript plain html perfectly safe
when I click “New Identity” the browser opens the page in the settings
it can be very helpful i don’t want to use the bookmarks toolbar because of fingerprinting
Do you mind editing the Tor Browser chapter for this fix?
Will do after researching which env variable we should be using. Also will document skipping confirmation dialog.
Thanks entr0py - you are a technical whizz (a bit like 0brand), so any of your edits are very solid.