torbrowser being an older than current version of firefox, its sync mechanism is incompatible with firefox’s current sync service.
Is there a free/FOSS compatible sync service for current torbrowser out there?
Good day,
sorry, but what do you mean by sync mechanism/service? The update client?
Have a nice day,
Ego
Perhaps you didn’t know …
Firefox has a built in sync service for syncing browser bookmarks, addons, and the like across browser installations/profiles.
It’s the only sync in relation to firefox that I know of. SyncML, et al, doesn’t apply to firefox.
In firefox (torbrowser), see edit / preferences / sync.
Good day,
ok, I simply wasn’t thinking anyone would ever want to synchronise between different iterations of the TBB using this system. Regarding that, there has actually been a discussion a long while back, see: Using Mozilla's "Sync" feature unexpectedly syncs a lot of privacy settings (#7188) · Issues · Legacy / Trac · GitLab
As it is being End-To-End encrypted, it seems to be something, which could be used for bookmarks, though not for things like Addons, as that would ruin the anonymity provided by the TBB. If you really want to use it though, I have to recommend doing the whole syncing process by yourself, as it can never be said, what happens with your data on mozillas servers, see here: Mozilla Services Documentation — Mozilla Services
As far as I can tell though, there is no incompatibility between the version used in the TBB and the current Firefox iteration, so I can’t really see, on what your initially question is based on. Simply click on “Sync” (in the TBB), “Get Started”, activate JavaScript if you haven’t already and log in using credentials, only used with the TBB, as otherwise, you can and will get linked to your TBB usage, “Sign Up” and mark “Choose what to sync”, verify your mail and you’re good to go.
Have a nice day,
Ego
Tried that (or I wouldn’t have posted) - help about reveals firefox 38.4.0. And (the new) firefox sync isn’t compatible with such old versions of firefox. Thus my original post.
Not looking to set up my own sync server - but I do take your points.
Storing passwords in the cloud … wouldn’t be a good thing.
So:
Is there a free/FOSS compatible sync service for current torbrowser out there?
Good day,
the TBB is based on Firefox ESR. The ESR, as you can tell from here: Get Firefox for your enterprise with ESR and Rapid Release means, that version 38.4.0 in this case, actually is based on the “standard release” of Firefox 42.0, which in turn does support the newest version of Firefox sync. Recommending an alternative is rather hard, as there seem to be only few which have End-to-End encryption integrated in the way Firefox sync does.
Have a nice day,
Ego
I hear you. I understand ESR.
However, when I tried, it wouldn’t work. Or I wouldn’t have posted the question. Firefox’s current website sync is not interested in this browser version, apparently as of about a month ago. It wants to upgrade the current version of the app’s sync, and the only way for it to do so is to upgrade firefox. Since I know of no new ESR version, and this Tor browser was installed within the last week or so, I don’t expect Tor browser has since been updated, becoming compatible with the new sync.
I was not looking for your recommendation, I simply asked if anyone knew of another free/FOSS compatible sync service for current torbrowser out there?
Good day,
Regarding this:
Could you please explain what didn’t work for you? Because I’ve just tried it and it worked flawlessly over two Whonix workstation, using the standard TBB. What do you mean by [quote=“rAntOCauDgb, post:7, topic:1763”]
not interested in this browser version
[/quote]
Could you please tell me where your problem lies? Did you not receive the verification mail, did the synchronisation between instances of the TBB not work, or what? Like I’ve said, it was successful for me.
To be honest, you claimed in your initial post, that there was incompatibility were there is non. Regarding synchronizers, with open source licensing, as you can see on this handy comparison, there are not that many: Comparison of browser synchronizers - Wikipedia A lot of them are either incompatible with Firefox, Debian or proprietary.
Have a nice day,
Ego
Thanks for the confirmation that it should work.
I have to assume then that NoScript or some other addon is blocking things. I’ll have to investigate further, perhaps starting up in safe mode. Except that would disable Tor as well, which probably wouldn’t be good.
An easy reason for being useful would be if you had to reinstall TBB, or wanted to use a 2nd profile. What has been particularly useful in the past is having all one’s addons come back automagically in such circumstances.
Agreed - no alternate candidates in the wikipedia link.
Good day,
like I’ve mentioned, for the sign up process, Javascript needs to be temporarily active, which means that you have to deactivate Noscript.
Regarding Addons, like I’ve mentioned time and time again, adding any to the standard TBB destroys your anonymity immediately.
Have a nice day,
Ego
rAntOCauDgb:
perhaps starting up in safe mode. Except that would disable Tor
Please don’t substitute saying Tor, if you mean TorButton. That leads to
confusion.
10-4, but didn’t (substitute). At least not intentionally.
But to your point, perhaps I’m confusing things unintentionally.
AFAIK, the stuffing stuff down Tor isn’t forced by TorButton. Other bits in the TorBrowser environment does. e.g. I expect even with TorButton addon disabled, things will still go down Tor. No?
e.g. Isn’t Tor traffic forced by virtue of the proxy setting? Not the addon. Or (er), things still go down that path, but without TorButton aren’t magically massaged to be acceptable to the next hop?
[quote=“Ego, post:10, topic:1763”]Javascript needs to be temporarily active, which means that you have to deactivate Noscript.[/quote] Again, this is FAR too broad. Only the right domains need be excepted in NoScript (for any given thing).
[quote]Regarding Addons, like I’ve mentioned time and time again, adding any to the standard TBB destroys your anonymity immediately.[/quote]Again, FAR too broad, and certainly in and of itself, by itself, might not. ‘This’ addon vs ‘that’ addon.
Or, put another way … to an extent that a particular person in a particular situation, cares, or sufficiently matters to them?
To say any and all addons at every and all times ‘destroys your anonymity immediately’ is not credible and far too broad. ‘Politics of fear’ even.
Btw…
Can I install other Firefox extensions?
Yes, traffic always goes through Tor, also without TorButton. What TorButton is good for is documented here: Tor Browser Essentials
Isn’t Tor traffic forced by virtue of the proxy setting?
TorButton also configures the proxy settings of Firefox. The dynamic socks user name per browser tab for browser tab isolation cannot be done manually.
things still go down that path, but without TorButton aren’t magically massaged to be acceptable to the next hop?
Please rephrase if still an open question.
Good day,
Regarding my “far to general” comment about add ons, let me say this:
One of the main ways, anonymity is accomplished when using the TBB, is by maximising the amount of users, surfing with the exact same fingerprint. This is done, as to make tracking based on things like canvas fingerprinting, the add ons you’ve installed, etc. as hard as possible. Most add ons offered for the Firefox, will break this anonymity, thus websites you visit, can tell the difference between you and the dozens of other people using the TBB. While I can agree with you that there may be a few rare add ons which don’t change your fingerprint in any way visible to others, finding such in it of itself would be quite a task and mostly not worth the effort necessary. Adding to that, most add ons which would be beneficial to anonymity/security while browsing will change your fingerprint, simple because that’s how they are designed. That’s why, if there really is an add on you believe would benefit the TBB and its users, it would be the best, to simply create an enquiry on whether it should be added. Maybe there is already a discussion happening about it, which weighs all pro’s and con’s.
What I just mentioned is for example the reason why, despite Tails already having included it, there is no AdBlocker included with Whonix.
Have a nice day,
Ego
> “will break this anonymity”
No. Far too broad. Reduce it, sure, break it - unlikely. The size of the haystack is smaller, but the question is, is it smaller enough to matter, to one, in their use case? Never mind to everyone in all use cases all of the time.
Let alone it is a far stretch from a less common fingerprint to government authorities showing up on your doorstep with incontrovertible proof that you are their guy. Let alone, such fear mongering assumes that you are their guy of some form of actitivy the general population considers to be so nefarious that they are willing to see government consume large resources to find you.
After all, even with a reduced fingerprint, you’re going through tor, and a number of other measures.
If you take a single puff of pot, or download a single copyrighted torrent to watch it once, they’re not going to put out such resources. They have many bigger fish to fry.
> “there may be a few rare add ons which don’t change your fingerprint in any way visible to others,”
This is still reversed. The question is rather, does it change it enough to in practice matter, in the end - sufficiently?
It is not cause and effect that using such an addon will be the end of your world. Too broad.
And a disservice to the computer using public.
Even if one person is ‘caught’ - because they carried out activities so egregious authorities were sufficiently motivated to find them, if they even could with all the other onion layers surrounding things, 99 (?) or more others were not.
In the end - don’t do the activity, and the fingerprint won’t matter.
However, that too is too extreme - and the definition of ‘matters’ is somewhere in between, due to human nature.
What most find of no consequence or of no matter, some few may, and those few can cause a great deal of aggravation. (This is the human nature part.) So, human nature also reasonably says to take reasonable steps to not expose themselves to such aggravation any more than they have to.
But MOST of the time, it doesn’t matter, running an addon won’t in and of itself significantly increase your risk profile (as you are mostly not on their radar / of concern) - it’s not likely to be the end of the world.
But your characterizations are generally far too broad - thus my reactions.
Your phrasing seems to not infrequently be essentially that the sky is falling, and I believe for most of the time for most of the people in most of the places in the world, it won’t make one whit’s difference. But will improve their use experience - or they wouldn’t be adding it.
Coming from a premise that the world will end for them in all cases all of the time is a unreasonable disservice. Come at it from the other way instead - MOST of the time {x} will not ultimately matter, but if {this} is your use case, you may want to carefully consider {these} tradeoffs you are giving up in using {x}.
The glass is half full, not half empty.
Else people are scared away from using things at all, and we are all probably the poorer for it. A protest not happening for fear of using the available tools, for fear of a night in jail that will likely be at most inconvenient, would be a bad thing. A discussion and debate not happening, for fear of even trying at all, is counter to those trying to make the tools in the first place.
It is not black and white. The glass is half full - most of the time for most of the people in most of the places in the world.
Not every fiddly bit is an absolute, let alone each AND every fiddly bit ALL of the time - but that appears to be how you present. Thus you see me say … Too broad. Not credible. Which, sadly, colours anything else you say, and buries the really good stuff you do say within noise that people may or not still be willing to chew through in case of such.
There is a reason why the acronym YMMV has become as pervasive as it has. Because it applies.
``- and no doubt, to me, here, too.
Good day,
without wanting to offend you, I feel like your last post is far less informed, then you might think. So, let me explain, why what you’ve written does not only just barely make sense but is actually not something which could in any way shape or form be seen as correct, especially with your focus on “not being to broad” with what gets written, since, as I’ll try to show you, in that area, you’ve been rather hypocritical.
So, let’s start:
[quote=“rAntOCauDgb, post:16, topic:1763”]
“will break this anonymity”
No. Far too broad. Reduce it, sure, break it - unlikely. The size of the haystack is smaller, but the question is, is it smaller enough to matter, to one, in their use case? [/quote]
First of all, who are you talking about when saying “their use case”? Since you apparently want me to focus on staying absolutely objective, it would be nice if you could not just talk about certain individuals, without defining, who these are. To put it simply, my advice before tried to stay as general as possible and in that way, it is still correct.
Furthermore, please quote me COMPLETLEY, not just in a way which supports your argument, as this only makes you appear as if you don’t want to understand what I wrote. What I did write wasn’t simply “will break this anonymity”, as you’ve quoted BUT:
The important word lies here in the MOST. This already creates an inherently different meaning, which is absolutely correct. The “size of the haystack”, as you lovingly named it, does get reduced, that is something we can agree on, but for MOST (there it is again) addons, this change in size/traceability isn’t as insignificant, as it may seem. The Tor Browser Bundle in this configuration is used by a massive amount of users, in its pure form. How many these are can only be speculated, but what is definitely sure, is that all these users can’t be pinpoint based on their browser signature. If you, a SINGLE person, may I remind you, now add an addon, which fits in the above mentioned category of addons, which change your fingerprint, you happen to be a SINGLE person, which uses the “normal” TBB signature PLUS this addon, thus you can easily be tracked. If you somehow convince thousands of people to use the TBB with the addon you like, the fingerprinting issue will be less severe, but still exist.
Again, I can only give information. I don’t know, who you are, who these “everyone’s” are you mention and what benefit they promise themselfes, by adding addons to the TBB. All I can do, is say, that fingerprinting is a massive issue, because that is a fact.
First of all, what do you mean with “fear mongering”? I use the TBB in the way recommended by the Tor project (Source: The Design and Implementation of the Tor Browser [DRAFT] Please read in its entirety, as to understand the way the TBB was designed) and that is considered suspicious?
Next, how did you get from “Fingerprinting is an issue”, to “activity the general population considers to be so nefarious that they are willing to see government consume large resources to find you”? I’m not even going to explain to you how this doesn’t have anything to do with this topic, nor that there are dozens of use cases for the Tor project, which are tolerated or even needed by the public and require anonymity. Journalism, …
I’m just going to link to the wiki, as this is the most basic misunderstanding there can be: Tips on Remaining Anonymous.
Again, how do you get from the problems caused by fingerprinting (i.e. you not being anonymous) to illegal things? Also, what does the TorBROWSERBundle have to do with torrents. You are mixing a lot of things here, which have nothing to do with each other.
Like mentioned before, unless you know a thousand people which use the TBB with the same Addon, yes.
I never claimed it to be the end of the world, just the end of the anonymity which is provided by the TBBs signature.
Sorry, but I have no idea what you mean by that and how you even got to the thought.
Again, what are you talking about? I am talking about browser fingerprinting and anonymity. And you are (again) talking about things which have nothing to do with these.
That is the same train of thought, which leads to people saying that they have nothing to hide. So, here would be my solution: Don’t do things, you technically don’t completely understand and it won’t matter.
On that we can agree, if I’ve understood what you meant correctly.
Sorry, lost me again. So a lot of people (at least in the EU) don’t care about their rights to stay anonymous in the slightest. A few do. Is this to be considered an “aggravation”? Or isn’t it the case, that the people, which don’t know the importance of anonymity, need to be educated by the people which do care and have the knowledge?
Like I’ve said, it won’t end the world, it will just be the end of the ability to hide yourself, by using the fingerprint 100,000 other people use.
I think we have something in common then.
It is ever so nice to finally meet an omnipresent person, which not only knows, what most people think, but also is able, to use this knowledge and apply it in this discussion.
Again, who are “they”? And, how do you get to “improve their use experience” and “or they wouldn’t be adding it”. Because if you are saying that there are people which want to enrich “their use experience" and do so by adding addons, first of all, it would be nice to know how “they” want to “improve their use experience” and second, (again) who these people are, since I haven’t heard from that many which, after properly educating themselves, voluntarily add addons to the TBB, as they are aware of the consequences this can have.
Who are they? Like I’ve said, I can only give information. I don’t know who you/they are and what they want. I can only state facts to the degree I’ve understood them. Regading the second part let me rephrase it: It will matter ONLY when you want to keep the anonymity provided, otherwise not.
For me, it is both.
I (again) don’t know, how you got to this train of thought.
What you’ve written wasn’t the crown of credibility either. Furthermore, it’s nice to see how you can judge my credibility seeing how you’ve had apparent problems with definitions which in this form have been in the wiki for quite a long time, weren’t misinterpreted by others and also weren’t the spawn of myself. I’d understand, if my posts would be the only ones, which are problematic for you, as then I would know that I need to improve my phrasing (something which is true either way), though this isn’t the case. Maybe it is possible, that you are just like me, someone who sometimes misunderstands and doesn’t know everything, just like a human usually does, though from what I’ve read, you are with certainty more capable then anyone else and only have initial problems with some explanations, because they didn’t reach the high quality, your mind needs to comprehend such simple things.
Can agree with you there.
Have a nice day,
Ego