New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.5a6

by richard | March 28, 2024

Tor Browser 13.5a6 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

This version includes important security updates to Firefox.

We would like to thank the folowing community members for their contributions this release:

If you would like to contribute, our contributor guide can be found here.

Letterboxing Improvements and Configuration Options

Over the past month we have merged various usability improvements and configuration options for the new letterboxing UX. In about:preferences#general one may now configure some aspects of the letterbox behaviour, including whether the content area floats in the center of the window or is snapped to the browser chrome at the top. We also implemented a somewhat hidden feature which will allow you to remove the extra spacing when you resize the window by double-clicking within the letterbox gutter area. This will snap the whole window down to the size required by the content.

Native Android Connect-Assist

We have continued improving our connect-assist implementation on Android. This has included backend work continuing to improve and generalise the low-level systems used by both Desktop and Android versions, frontend work re-immplementing the same flow, configuration options, and error handling presently found in the Desktop frontend. We have also started refactoring the various Tor configuration related menus and the Tor Logs are once again accessible using the native ux by navigating to Settings > Connection > Tor Logs

Please give the new systems a go by navigating to Settings > Connection > Enable beta connection features and toggling Enable beta connection features and selecting Native Android UI

Known Issues

We still have a lot of work to do, bugs to fix, and general polish to apply. We currently have one known issue whereby manually enabling bridges in the Config Bridge menu usually fails to stick after navigating away from that menu. This issue is being tracked in tor-browser#42486

Connect-Assist Backend Work

As mentioned in the previous section, we have been iteratively improving the connect-assist backend code which is used on both Desktop and Android. If you are Desktop user we would appreciate you verifying that your bootstrapping experience is unchanged between releases, particularly if you have any custom configuration or settings.

Localisation Updates

We have been developing several improvements to our localisation pipelines and we have been merging patches which remove legacy 'dtd'-based translation strings and migrate to the modern 'fluent' system used by modern Firefox. End-users should not see any changes as a result of these changes. Please keep an eye out for for any broken strings or translation regressions and report any issues you may find!

Send us your feedback

If you find a bug or have a suggestion for how we could improve this release, please let us know.

Full changelog

The full changelog since Tor Browser 13.5a5 is:

Comments

We encourage respectful, on-topic comments. Comments that violate our Code of Conduct will be deleted. Off-topic comments may be deleted at the discretion of the moderators. Please do not comment as a way to receive support or to report bugs on a post unrelated to a release. If you are looking for support, please see our FAQ, user support forum or ways to get in touch with us.