Author: anonym Date: To: intrigeri CC: The Tails public development discussion list, Mike Perry, Mark Smith, Kathleen Brade Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] Tor Launcher as a standalone XUL app in Tails
19/02/14 15:40, intrigeri wrote: > Hi,
>
> anonym wrote (18 Feb 2014 18:08:01 GMT) :
>> TL;DR: I think the standalone approach is better, and like to switch it.
>
> After reading the following (but not the last email from Mark yet),
> I now concur.
Excellent! Then I'll proceed on this path.
To be able to work on this more efficiently (well, faster feedback you
all) I think I'll start with a quick-and-dirty POC branch in Tails where
I'll just include Tor Launcher via config/chroot_local-includes to avoid
the packaging (that part will be nuked from the history before merging).
This way I can work on the Tails integration and Debian packaging of Tor
Launcher (which I may ask you about some best practices) in parallel.
>> Some notes on "exit the browser" vs standalone XUL approaches:
> [...]
>> * The way I understand the "exit the browser" approach is that we'd
>> have Tor Launcher installed as an Iceweasel extension. However,
>> having it intalled in our default Iceweasel profile will not be
>> pretty so we'll have to generate yet another profile, with the added
>> complexity and maintaince burden of that.
>
> I don't see the downsides of having Tor Launcher installed as an
> extension in our primary browsing profiles. I guess that's not
> a decisive point anyway.
For whatever it's worth (since you already seem to be convinced for
other reasons) here's one example on why I think it's messy, and I think
it suggests that there are deeper reasons why the browser and Tor
controller should be separate among our assumptions, and in Tails' design:
The primary profile can be used offline too. For instance, if a link in
some GNOME notification is clicked, Iceweasel using the primary profile
will be opened. We'd some how need to make Tor Launcher *not* run when
the browser is opened while offline (start with `TOR_SKIP_LAUNCH`?). But
then, if the browser was opened while offline and we then connect to a
network (and we are in bridge mode), then the NM hook will want to start
the already running browser with the "envvar that will show Tor
Launcher's network settings and then exit the browser". How can all this
be achieved without creating a complete mess?
