[tor-bugs] #3994 [Tor bundles/installation]: Get TorBrowser in Debian

["Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki" <torproject-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

#3994: Get TorBrowser in Debian
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 Reporter:  lunar                     |          Owner:  erinn
     Type:  task                      |         Status:  new  
 Priority:  normal                    |      Milestone:       
Component:  Tor bundles/installation  |        Version:       
 Keywords:                            |         Parent:       
   Points:                            |   Actualpoints:       
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 Torbutton as pure Firefox extension is now deprecated. The project now
 advocates to use TorBrowserBundle instead.

 For users of Debian (and its derivative, Tails being one of them), it
 would probably be good to offer a more streamlined experience and ship
 TorBrowser as a Debian package.

 In order to preserve the anonymity set, this browser should work as close
 as possible to the one shipped in the TorBrowserBundle.

 The Debian policy states that a package should not contain any embedded
 code copy. So simply shipping the result of TorBrowserBundle build is not
 an option.

 Mike Hommey (maintainer of Iceweasel) and Moritz Muehlenhoff (from the
 security team) are both ok to create a `iceweasel-src` package that would
 contain the source files needed to build a patched Firefox. A Debian
 package could apply specific Tor patches on top of that to build something
 close to core TorBrowser.

 The rest of the features are provided through Firefox extensions. TBB is
 currently shipped HTTPS-Everywhere, NoScript and Torbutton. All of these
 extensions are already in Debian.

 Having TorBrowser installed system-wide do open a new class of problems,
 though:

  * Profiles should probably be saved in a different directory in user
 $HOME than Iceweasel or official Firefox.
  * The ideal way to deal with system-wide extensions would probably be
 that: a new profile would start with all system extensions disabled except
 for the one shipped in TBB. By going through the Add-ons panel, user could
 re-enable more of them (even those that could lead to anonymity breaches).

 Once a tor-browser binary package is in Debian, we can also have it depend
 on Vidalia and have a TorBrowser icon start the later, like TBB does.

 I hope I have not overlooked anything on the various issues involvedâ

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3994>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
The Tor Project: anonymity online
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