What should Tor Browser Updater (Whonix) do in a TemplateVM?

[Patrick]

@cprise

I would re-define the ‘updater’ role as strictly a downloader. If it notices a TBB is already present, warn the user that the browser + browser data will be overwritten if they proceed. Short and to the point.

That will be the case in Whonix 12. Desktop shortcuts renamed to include ‘downloader’. Same goes for documentation, window title and window contents.

Here is an older screenshot (without the Qubes specific message):
https://phabricator.whonix.org/file/data/epd4vbnqym63tajhww7p/PHID-FILE-fluqfju3qgvt7hv5wbvx/tb_updater_local_version_numer_detection_not_implemented.png

Here is the text with the Qubes TemplateVM specific message:

Whonix Forum

Here is a little more background to all of that:
https://phabricator.whonix.org/T400

@cprise

If there is a way to automatically launch TB in the check/update mode then that could be an option as well.

No.
Just now wrote a feature request…

headless TBB updates [by script]

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17136

[Patrick]

Created a new ticket.

up to date versions of Tor Browsers in newly created AppVMs inherited from updated TemplateVMs

ship Tor Browser tarballs in Qubes TemplateVMs in /var/cache/tb-binary and extract in AppVMs at boot time to user's home folder

https://phabricator.whonix.org/T417

[Patrick]

The above ticket up to date versions of Tor Browsers in newly created AppVMs inherited from updated TemplateVMs has been implemented and it’s now documented here:
Tor Browser Essentials