Tor Browser Bundle 1.2.8 released

by phobos | August 20, 2009

Tor Browser Bundle 1.2.8 is released. The big changes are the inclusion of statically linked openssl dlls to resolve a few geoip lookup and functionality issues with Vidalia, and the upgrade to the new Vidalia 0.2.2.

Available at https://torproject.org/torbrowser

The full list of updates and fixes:

  • update Torbutton to 1.2.2
  • update Vidalia to 0.2.2
  • compile OpenSSL 0.9.8k with Visual C to make dlls
  • update Pidgin to 2.6.1

Comments

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Anonymous (not verified) said:

August 21, 2009

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Great thanks for the upgrade.
Looks like Tor check @ xenobite is not working. Can someone give a list of any sites that can check if Tor is working correctly?

Anonymous (not verified) said:

August 23, 2009

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But why Tor browser bundle doesn't have privoxy? It's not needed in this package or?

Satisfied Tor User (not verified) said:

August 25, 2009

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Just a quick note -- I thought I was supposed to continue using Privoxy in conjunction with the 1.2.7 and 1.2.8 bundles. I have Privoxy 3.0.6, I think, on the computer, and Tor 1.2.8 on the USB drive. As long as I clear the browsing cache out, and open Privoxy first, then open Tor, they usually work together. Apparently, now with Polipo, I take it Privoxy is an extra layer I don't need now. Can you verify this for us? As Privoxy does work with Vidalia 1.2.8, is there any point in continuing to use them together?

With great thanks,

Satisfied Tor User

phobos

phobos said:

August 25, 2009

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The Tor Browser Bundle, aka the portable bundle, doesn't include
Privoxy. It includes Polipo instead. Polipo and Privoxy serve
different purposes.

Privoxy and Polipo can both filter content at the proxy, before it
reaches your web browser. In the Tor Browser Bundle, Polipo is
configured without filtering and without disk cache. Polipo caches
objects in ram, and generally is used to speed up browsing the Internet
via Tor. We use Polipo as a way to get around the Firefox bugs with
SOCKS proxies. Using Firefox 3.0 and earlier with Tor directly can be a
very slow experience, due to hard-coded timeouts in Firefox. Firefox
3.5.x may or may not fix the SOCKS issues enough to let us remove the
http proxy.

People install the Vidalia bundle so they can use their favorite web
browser (for good or for bad) with Tor and Privoxy. At the time the
Vidalia bundle was created, Opera, IE, Safari, and other browsers lacked
the ability to filter content via plugins. Privoxy fulfills this role.
This situation isn't so much the case today, but we continue to ship
Privoxy because no one has come up with a better browser or
configuration. And Firefox still has bugs with SOCKS proxies.

Torora and TorFox may be the future, where Torbutton's anonymity and
privacy protections are built into the browser; and they are faster at
interfacing with Tor directly. This removes the need for a http proxy
between the browser and Tor. However, research and development
continues on both browsers.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

August 26, 2009

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"People install the Vidalia bundle so they can use their favorite web
browser (for good or for bad) with Tor and Privox"

Thanks for all the answers phobos. So as long as I download the current version of the Tor Browser Bundle, I do not need to download anything else such as Privoxy, right?

Satisfied Tor User (not verified) said:

August 24, 2009

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Thank you for the new 1.2.8 bundle: the network map, lines, and country flags are all back and working. Now I feel like a mad scientist again.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

August 27, 2009

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I'm connecting to the internet trough a wireless router and the connection is slooooooow because of the many simultaneous connections tor creates. The router's memory is simply unnecessarily occupied with connection data, while the cheap chipset struggles to keep up the connection.
Please improve Tor by limiting somehow the strain on the router. There I have a rough idea of how such a mechanism could work: keep the number of connections between an optimum and a maximum connection number and send as few connection requests as possible. Set a tag to each node connectable or not, according to the limits. Is the connection number greater than maximum, set the node as not connectable until the number of connections drops below the optimum. Send connection request only when below the optimum.
Pls check the comment form, it seems to truncate messages under some circumstances ( <......CR >(write the CR w/o the dots) or other characters?).
Is this comment misplaced, pls move it in the appropiate section.
KThxBye!

Jim McMann (not verified) said:

September 01, 2009

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Installed Snow Leopard release on two different Macs. Tor is broken now. When activated (on Firefox) i get only an error page.

Any ideas how to fix?

Jan (not verified) said:

September 09, 2009

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Where can I get the version that works in Snow Leopard ? Is it the alpha version of TOR or of VIDALIA ???

Thanks,
Jan

Anonymous (not verified) said:

September 01, 2009

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Everytime I want to use Tor browser, I have to remove installation folder and install that again, because after Start Tor Browser.exe starts, it launches Firefox portable only @ first use, the second time and all following starts it's not starting. Thus I have to reinstall it every time. I have WinXP SP3 MUI.

Start Tor Browser.exe is supposed to launch portable firefox. When you're done browsing anonymously, quit firefox, which should quit everything else, namely vidalia.

When you want to browse anonymously again, click on Start Tor Browser.exe.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

September 02, 2009

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Well earlier I quit working by shutting down Vidalia, not Firefox, as you suggest. But now I reinstalled and shut down by quitting firefox, and it works. But if I try to stop Vidalia first, then Firefox will not start next time. Thanks for the input.

I tried the following scenarios on my test machine:

1) Killing vidalia by clicking "exit". Vidalia exits, taking Firefox with it. Click Start Tor Browser, and everything works.

2) Killing vidalia by clicking the x in the upper right corner of the window. Vidalia disappears, but Firefox stays running. When clicking "Start Tor Browser", Vidalia prompts me for a password, because the old tor is still running.

3) Killing firefox in any manner (close or window x), vidalia quits soon after. Start Tor Browser works fine when clicked.

So what you're saying is scenario #1 fails?

Anonymous (not verified) said:

September 12, 2009

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scenario #1 fails. Killing vidalia by clicking the x in the upper right corner of the window make it minimize in the notification area of the task bar. And also, funny thing i that when I pin shortcut to 'Start Tor Browser' to Start menu, it won't start from there. Only from actual 'Start Tor Browser.exe' location. This machine is SP3 WinXP PRO MUI. TOday I also tested Tor Browser Bundle 0.2.1.19 on another machine WinXP PRO MUI SP2 without many recent windows updates. Everything works fine, killing firefox or vidalia first doesn't make Firefox unstartable for the second time of use. But! it also doesn't want to start from start menu, although I specified the correct path there. The onion is black with red cross on it, and the error popup appears: Vidalia already running (but it's not true) - if I click "continue" - it starts another vidalia.exe with anorher crossed onion and error pop up - and this may happen up to infinity, I guess.

bj (not verified) said:

September 06, 2009

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hi, i am in a school campus(6mB/s dowload limit) and many ports are closed, so we can't download torrents, but i am using Tor and BitTorrent, and now it's working, just a little problem: torrent download is very slow, especially with files with many peers and seeds(1000-5000). why? those should go really fast, no? i get about 10-20kB/s download from these torrents, but usually 0. It seems that 0(sometimes 1) of those 5000 peers connect only. why? Also, i tried to run Tor as Relay, but port forwarding does not work, even in BitTorrent at the SpeedGuide window, the "test if port is forwarded correctly" button returns error. But BitTorrent is configured to use Socks5, and downloads are working, only really slowly. Any ideas on how i could make torrents work as they should?

hey i just bought a new computer and i downloaded bittorrent. i tried to download a movie but it just wont download. i tried utorrents also and still same thing. i am on campusalso using cable and i am wondering if it has something to do with firewall settings or if port is not open. i get this error msg [2009-09-12 21:18:33] Error opening Windows firewall: 0x80070005 Access is denied. Please help me out....thanks. i have windows vista. dell 1318.

SwissTorExit (not verified) said:

September 06, 2009

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Hello bj,

Tor are not made for bittorent technology and for sure you will never more quick as that.

We will appreciate if you change your approach with "bitblinder" for exemple who are done for that and work with same principe.

if you use bittorent on Tor, you overload the relay and so penalize the peoples.

So please only use Tor to communicate with trackers but not for peers.

Thanks in advance.

PS: Bitblinder work on his own network who are done for bittorent.

bj (not verified) said:

September 11, 2009

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thanks for your info !
i didn't know that Tor should not be used in this manner, i will stop using it with bittorrent
anyway, good work ! keep it up!

Anonymous (not verified) said:

September 11, 2009

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Hi, I really like the tor browser bundle that I can run off a USB drive. Just one question. Every time I try to download a large file, the download freezes up at right around 30MB. It stays there with no further progress, and eventually the download stops altogether.

Is this normal, or a setting that I have? Or is it that the individual people on the tor network have set a limit that can be passed through?

"Is your usb drive out of space"
Do you think the guy is stupid or are you trying to be funny ?

Are you using polipio as proxy, it has a limit of around 30MB larger files cannot be downloaded using it.
Use Privoxy instead, no limit on size with this one as proxy.

I'm not suggesting "the guy" is stupid nor am I trying to be funny. It happens far more often than you think.

I've downloaded 1.5GB files via polipo 1.0.4, which is what we ship. Where do you run into the 30MB limit?

Anonymous (not verified) said:

November 10, 2009

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I have the same problem, sometimes it makes it to 40 or 50 mgs but never finishes dloading the whole file.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

September 23, 2009

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No offence.
I don't have that issue but many people complain about that problem when they use polipo instead of privoxy, I don't know what specific version or type of site it's limited to if any.
Maby it's an older version of polipo that has been shipped with many common releases still used.

The limit they all claim they never is able to go past is just 30MB that's why i address it more likely than being a usb drive running out of space at just that point.
Also if a drive was full or would be the first thing people would check if they knew they were running low on space.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

October 28, 2009

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I install Tor, but Vidalia asks for pass
Why does vidalia ask me of password?
Where must I get registered?

Sleek (not verified) said:

October 29, 2009

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Please do you know how I could configure bittorrent to work with tor? thanks in advance

Anonymous (not verified) said:

November 02, 2009

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hi so im running mac os x snow leopard and i installed the alpha x86 version as stated above. i set up my proxies on firefox, being "http proxy localhost :8118", and firefox says "the proxy server is refusing connections. What do i do?

Steve (not verified) said:

November 21, 2009

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Hello guys, I am new to Tor, I tried installing Tor but its asking for password. Can any body help out. I really have to install Tor. Please what do I do?

Anonymous (not verified) said:

February 10, 2010

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I have an Intel Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6.2 installed. Since Apple did their security upgrade in Jan. I can not get Tor or Vidalia to work no matter what I do. I have downloaded every version available to me and tried everything I know and have read everything I can find but Tor just no longer starts. I am far from a computer expert but have been using Tor for a long time on different Mac's and this is the first problem I have ever had. Is there anything I can do to fix this or any hope there will be a patch of some kind? Thanks for any help.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

March 25, 2010

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i want to try to use this browser my friend tell me about this so i just want to give it a try

Anonymous (not verified) said:

May 14, 2010

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Hi I was talking to the lads who do Incognito, and I was asking them what the pros of using a bootable OS is over your tor browser bundle would be. There answer was that the tor browser might be writing stuff to my OS.. Is this true?

Say some one was to get at my comuter, would the tor browser leave a trace on my computer that I visited say hushmail?

Thanks.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

June 13, 2010

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Firefox / Flock
Torbutton
Polipo NOT WORKING
Custom (8118,950) NOT WORKING
Netshade FILTER OFF
Snow Leopard
vidalia-bundle-0.2.1.26-0.2.9-i386.dmg NOT 64 BITS
vidalia-0.2.9-i386.dmg NOT 64 BIT

"the proxy server is refusing connections"

/Applications/Vidalia.app/Contents/MacOS/tor RUNNING

phobos

phobos said:

June 13, 2010

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The vidalia bundle for Mac OS X clearly states i386, not x86_64. Feel free open a bug about lack of 64bit support.

your custom port is incorrect, it should be 9050.

Anonymous (not verified) said:

November 02, 2010

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no one has responded to the "0x80070005 Access denied error" with windows firewall of which i also have the same problem... the program downloads but very slowly... two nights ago i was getting almost 1000kbs/second... now i can't even surpass 65kbs... does anyone know what the cause if this problem might be