Published on 2023-05-29
Tor Browser without Tor: We've teamed up with Mullvad VPN to launch Mullvad Browser
When the Mullvad VPN team approached us to develop a privacy-focused web browser built on the principles of the Tor Browser-- we knew we had to take the opportunity to spread good browser privacy to more users! The result of this partnership is the Mullvad Browser which we launched last month to critical acclaim and support from the community.
The Mullvad Browser offers similar privacy features to Tor Browser but works independently of the Tor network. Tor Browser will continue to exist as a powerful option for anonymity online, while the Mullvad Browser provides an alternative privacy browser. This partnership has allowed us to make necessary improvements to Tor Browser and address vulnerabilities, benefiting both browsers--and the larger privacy tech ecosystem.
"We hope to inspire other tech builders and organizations to take a page out of our playbook --and think of privacy as a 'feature' that can enhance user experience-- and not as an afterthought. This collaboration with Mullvad illustrates that it is possible to build privacy-preserving technology that protects users like ours does together, rather than in competition with each other," says Isabela Fernandes, Tor Project's Executive Director.
For more thoughts from Isabela, take a look at her blog post announcing the Browser release.
Tor's Global Impact
As we continue to think of how we can better reach people in the Global South where access to the unrestricted internet is facing increasingly more challenges, we are looking into how we can expand our outreach to strengthen ties with at-risk and underserved communities to address barriers to the adoption of our services and grow our community.
An instrumental part in that process is our Global South Strategy, a project that was launched in 2017 and recently assessed by Firetail, a strategy consultancy working to achieve social progress. To learn more about some of their key findings on our achievements, you can find a quick overview on our blog or access the full report.
A border-less country-agnostic space
The Tor Project advocates for Onion Services as a censorship-resistant technology that ensures end-to-end encryption and contributes to a decentralized web. We see onion services as a border-less, country-agnostic space that offers more protections for vulnerable users than regular websites. We realized onion services were not used to their fullest extent, so we launched support initiatives and resources to provide education, information and increase adoption. The Onion Support group was created by the Tor Project to promote the adoption of onion services among civil society groups, human rights organizations, and news media outlets. With the support of the Open Technology Fund, we have assisted organizations in setting up their own onion services and provided high-level support and training. We have also developed open-source tools like Onionprobe, Onion Launchpad, and Onionmine to facilitate onion service development.
Read more about how we think about "Planting and Growing Onions".
If you or your organization is interested in learning more about our technology, onions and onion support, please contact us through this form. You can also ask questions and start a discussion on the Tor Project Forum.
New: Tax-Deductible Donations to the Tor Project in Euros
Want to make a tax-deductible donation to the Tor Project in Euros (€)? Now it's simple to make a one-time or monthly donation in EUR through our Open Collective hosted by Open Collective Europe. If you previously made donations to Tor via Renewable Freedom Foundation in order to do it in Euros and receive tax benefits in your country, please transition your donations to Open Collective! Switching your donation will ensure you receive immediate receipts for your gifts and enable you to receive swag from the Tor Project.
Keeping up with the latest releases
Tor Browser
May 12: Tor Browser 12.0.6
It updates Firefox to 102.11esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates.
Build-Signing Infrastructure Updates: We are in the process of updating our build signing infrastructure, and unfortunately are unable to ship code-signed 12.0.6 installers for Windows systems currently. Therefore we will not be providing full Window installers for this release. However, automatic build-to-build upgrades from 12.0.4 and 12.0.5 should continue to work as expected.
To view the full changelog, take a look here: https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1206/
April 21: Tor Browser 12.5a5 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
This release updates Firefox 102.9.0esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. We also backported the Android-specific security updates from Firefox 112. We use this opportunity to update various other components of Tor Browser as well: NoScript 11.4.21
March 22: Tor Browser 12.5a4 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
Tor Browser 12.5a4 also adds support for the Finnish language on all platforms. We would like to thank volunteer olavinto for making this possible! View the full changelog here: https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-125a4/
March 18: New Release: Tor Browser 12.0.4
This release updates Firefox to 102.9.0esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. We also backported the Android-specific security updates from Firefox 111. We also used this opportunity to update various components of Tor Browser as well such as NoScript 11.4.18.
The full changelog can be found here: https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1204/
Arti
May 3: Arti 1.1.4 is released: Development on Onion Services and RPC
For this month and the next, our efforts are divided between onion services and work on a new RPC API (a successor to C Tor's "control port") that will give applications a safe and powerful way to work with Arti without having to write their code in Rust or link Arti as a library (unless they want to).
Our RPC code is still in an "infrastructure-only" state: the backend is mostly built, but as of yet it supports no useful functionality. For information on the general shape of our design, see the work-in-progress specification document. This release also solves a bug that prevented directories from updating under some circumstances.
The many smaller changes can be viewed in the changelog.
April 3: Arti 1.1.3 is released: More onion service development
Our primary focus remains: preparation for onion service support in Arti. We can now parse all of the relevant message types, build circuits as needed to target relays, build and sign onion service descriptors, and deliver onion service requests to our hsclient code.We've also solved a few annoying bugs, made our CI more bulletproof against certain programming mistakes, and exposed a few missing APIs in our code.\
For the many smaller changes, take a look at the changelog.
Building With Purpose: Puppet in Debian
As we continue to iterate on our Browser and network improvements, we're always on the lookout for opportunities to contribute back to the communities around the platforms and tools we depend on to keep the lights on. Puppet and Debian are two such projects that have allowed us to improve security and reliability while ensuring adherence to user-centric policies and allowing for greater system integration. The decision to use Debian packages was made due to their secure build process and user-focused policies, such as disabling analytics and update checks by default. We collaborated with the Debian Puppet Team to fix bugs and implement tests, aiming to bring their Puppet infrastructure up to date. This effort will benefit privacy-minded individuals and organizations relying on Puppet in Debian. Be sure to check out our blog post to get the full picture.
Upcoming Events
SIF, Stockholm Internet Forum, May 30, 2023 -- May 31, 2023
The theme for the Stockholm Internet Forum 2023 (SIF23) is the Role of the Internet and ICT during Crises, Conflicts and Disasters.
https://stockholminternetforum.se/
RightsCon, Costa Rica, June 5, 2023 -- June 8, 2023
RightsCon is the world's leading summit on human rights in the digital age. The Tor Project will host a Community Village booth on Thursday, June 8 from 9:00am to 12:00pm.
https://www.rightscon.org/
BTC Prague, June 8, 2023 -- June 10, 2023
The Tor Project's Director of Engineering, Micah Anderson, will be speaking at the biggest, most influential bitcoin event in Europe. In his talk Privacy & Anonymity: Securing the Digital Economy's Most Valuable Assets, Micah will explore popular use cases of Tor technologies and the value alignment with Bitcoin: how chain-anonymity and zero-knowledge solutions rely on the Tor network, how we mitigate risks, and what's next for free, open-source, decentralized anonymizing tech.
https://www.btcprague.com/
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
Published on 2023-03-16
Tor is slow right now. Here is what is happening.
For at least 7 months, several different types of ongoing denial of service (DoS) attacks have affected the Tor network. At some points, the attacks impacted the network severely enough that users could not load pages or access onion services.
We have been working hard to mitigate the impacts and defend the network from these attacks and we will continue to increase and tweak defenses to combat this problem. We've also added two new members to our Network team who will be solely focused on .onion services development.
You can help too! We are 70% towards our goal of fully funding two years worth of onion service development to mitigate the impacts of these attacks and we need your help to get there. Here's how: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-network-ddos-attack/.
New: WhatsApp user support for Tor users
Providing support and necessary tools for those who find themselves in places where Tor access is restricted has become one of our top priorities. As our community continues to grow, we need to make it easier and safer to connect with us. Which is why we have been adding additional support channels for the last two years: from IRC bridges to messaging apps like Telegram, Signal and—most recently—WhatsApp.
To ensure that you receive the best and safest support from us, we encourage you to verify that you're connecting with us through our official Tor Project channels. You can find the full list of legitimate links, email-addresses and numbers on our official support page. And to learn more about the best ways to connect with us across channels check out our recent blog post
What others are saying: Tor in the media
On March 6, the Twitter onion service certificate expired, effectively taking the onion site offline. We took to the media to voice our concerns about this development. Seeing the onion service, which was dubbed "Twitter’s Most Important Anti-Censorship Tool", go offline on the eve of Twitter's new leadership speaking publicly about building a "strong foundation of free speech" at a Morgan Stanley conference, is particularly ironic.
Let’s be clear, the need for onion services, the use of privacy-focused browsers that protect people's anonymity, and other forms of encryption still persists. We will continue to spread this message and advocate for widespread acceptance and adoption of our services.
Welcoming new board members to the Tor Project
We are excited to announce the result of our open call for board members - three new members are joining the Tor Project’s Board of Directors: Esra'a Al Shafei, Sarah Gran and Christian Kaufman! Each new member comes to Tor with a different set of expertise that will help the organization and our community. At the end of this post, you can read each of their bios.
Please join us in welcoming Esra’a, Sarah, and Christian to the board, and learn more about the valuable expeirence they bring to the board on our blog. (link to https://blog.torproject.org/announcing-new-board-members/)
Latest Releases
Arti 1.1.2
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_112_released/
(Feb. 28) While preparing for the next stages of onion service work, we've refactored that code significantly to make it more efficient and correct.
Tor Browser 12.5a3 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-125a3/
(Feb. 20) Updates Firefox on Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux to 102.8.0esr. It includes important security updates to Firefox and GeckoView. There were no Android-specific security updates to backport from the Firefox 110 release.
Tails 5.10
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tails-510/
(Feb. 16) Updates Tor Browser to 12.0.3. Asks for confirmation when starting without unlocking the Persistent Storage. Updates our documentation on the Persistent Storage.
Tor Browser 12.0.3
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1203/
(Feb. 15) This release updates Firefox to 102.8, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. There were no Android-specific security updates to backport from the Firefox 110 release.
Arti 1.1.1
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_111_released/
(Feb. 1) Since our last release, our primary focus has been preparation for onion service support in Arti. To that end, we've broken the work down into a bunch of tickets, designed our major internal APIs, and started to work on the lower-level features.
Job Opportunities
We're hiring a Product Designer. (link to https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/) This position will be an integral part of a small, "full stack" design team, encompassing the disciplines of UX design, ethical use This is a one-year, remote, full-time (40 hour/week) position with the possibility of extension. This position could be performed from most places in the world.
Upcoming Events
Join the Tor Project at the following in-person and online events:
European Digital Rights' 20th anniversary, March 21, 2023, Brussels
https://blog.torproject.org/event/edri-20th-anniversary/
Stockholm Internet Forum, May 30 - May 31, 2023, Sweden
https://blog.torproject.org/event/stockholm-internet-forum-2023/
RightsCon, June 5, 2023 – June 8, 2023, Costa Rica
https://blog.torproject.org/event/rightscon-2023/
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, July 10 - July 15, 2023, Switzerland
https://blog.torproject.org/event/privacy-enhancing-technologies-symposium-2023/
USENIX Security Symposium, August 9 - August 11, 2023, USA
https://blog.torproject.org/event/usenix-2023/
DEFCON31, August 10 - August 13, 2023, USA
https://blog.torproject.org/event/usenix-2023/
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
Published on 2022-12-22
🚀 Tor Browser 12.0 has landed!
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-120/
We're happy to bring Tor Browser 12.0, the first in the latest series, with many exciting improvements:
🦊 Tor Browser has been upgraded to Firefox Extended Support Release 102. We've carefully reviewed ESR 102's release notes to ensure each change adheres to Tor Browser's strict privacy and security principles.
💬 Tor Browser for desktop is now truly multi-locale, meaning all supported languages are included in a single bundle. You can switch display language without any additional downloads via the Language menu in General settings.
🍎 Tor Browser now provides native support for Apple Silicon. We've opted for a Universal Binary too – meaning both x86-64 (for Intel) and ARM64 (for Apple Silicon) builds are bundled together and the correct version chosen automatically.
🔒 HTTPS-Only Mode is now enabled by default in Tor Browser for Android. This change will help provide the same level of protection against SSL stripping attacks by malicious exit relays that we introduced to desktop in Tor Browser 11.5.
🧅 12.0 for Android also includes the option to "prioritize .onion sites". When enabled, you will be redirected automatically to the matching .onion site for any web site that has Onion-Location configured.
Check out the many changes in the 12.0 series (https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-120/), and if you find a bug or have a suggestion for how we could improve this release, please let us know. Thanks to all of the teams across Tor, and the many volunteers, who contributed to this release.
Resistance, Change, & Freedom: Reflecting on 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/reflecting-on-2022
Every end of year calls for reflection. This year at the Tor Project we’ve seen setbacks in the world’s fight for human rights coming from all directions and how privacy and freedom online have been critical lifelines for many.
In the midst of these setbacks, 2022 has also been a year of resistance. This year we’ve fought censorship with the incredible help of our community. You've helped build a chain of resistance, from sharing information about Snowflake on social media, to helping others learn how to bypass government censorship, to running a
proxy and donating your bandwidth for censored users, to offering legal support against censorship in the courts.
Read more reflections on Tor in 2020 from Isabela Fernandes, the Tor Project's Executive Director: https://blog.torproject.org/reflecting-on-2022.
Ensure Tor is strong for years to come: become a monthly donor
https://blog.torproject.org/become-a-monthly-donor/
Tor is powered by community. Just as the privacy the Tor network provides is made possible by a decentralized network of volunteers running relays—the Tor Project is made possible by a wide variety of supporters.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Tor Project relies on external support to fight for your privacy online. We will always build and offer free software. It’s part of our mission and our vision of a better internet. We don’t harvest or sell your data. We don’t charge you to use what we build. That means that everyone in the world can use Tor. It also means that if you have the ability, making a monthly donation to Tor ensures its availability for others.
By becoming a Defender of Privacy with a monthly donation, you make it possible for Tor to plan for the years ahead with confidence. Consistent support ensures that the Tor Project is sustainable and stable—and every donation, no matter the amount, helps: https://blog.torproject.org/become-a-monthly-donor/.
New Releases
Tails 5.8
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tails-58/
(Dec. 20) Tails 5.8 is the most important release of Tails in years. It includes both major redesign of existing features, important usability improvements, and hardened security.
Tor Browser 12.0.1
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1201/
(Dec. 15) Tor Browser 12.0.1 updates Firefox to 102.6, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. It fixes a regression in drag and drop protection, which disrupted some interface interactions.
Tor Browser 12.0
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-120/
(Dec. 7) Tor Browser 12.0 brings many significant improvements and updates Tor Browser to Firefox Extended Support Release 102.
Arti 1.1.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_110_released/
(Nov. 30) Arti is our ongoing project to create a next-generation Tor client in Rust. Arti 1.1.0 introduces support for Tor's anti-censorship features: bridges and pluggable transports.
Tor Browser 11.5.10 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11510/
(Nov. 29) This is an Android-only release which fixes crashes on Android 12+ devices caused by the targetSdkVersion update in 11.5.9.
Tor Browser 11.5.9 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1159/
(Nov. 23) This is an Android-only release which updates the Android Target API level to 31 to meet Google Play requirements.
Tor Browser 11.5.8 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1158/
(Nov. 22) Tor Browser 11.5.8 backports security updates from Firefox ESR 102.5 to Firefox ESR 91.13 on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Tor Browser 11.5.7 (Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1157/
(Nov. 3) This is a minor release for desktop platforms intended to facilitate the single-locale to multi-locale bundle upgrade coming with the 12.0 series later this month.
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.
Published on 2022-10-01
You're Invited: State of the Onion 2022
We're happy to announce that the State of the Onion, a livestream event highlighting updates from onion-world over the last year, is returning this month! This year, we'll State of the Onion will be a two-part event:
Everyone is invited to hear news, accomplishments, challenges, and next steps of all the Tor Project's teams + Tor community projects during these live events. Remember to click on the YouTube links above and set a reminder for each event. We look forward to sharing the event programs on the blog and forum soon.
Donations to the Tor Project matched 1:1 now through December
https://blog.torproject.org/powered-by-privacy/
Every year, the Tor Project (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) holds a fundraiser where we ask for your support. As part of this fundraiser, now through December, your donation to the Tor Project today will be matched, 1:1.
That means that every donation, up to $100,000, will be doubled. Now is an excellent time to give because your donation counts twice. Be sure to check out https://donate.torproject.org for this year’s new t-shirt, and a brand-new offering: a sturdy canvas tote bag.
Global Encryption Day: Demand End-to-End Encryption in DMs
https://blog.torproject.org/global-encryption-day-2022/
October 21, 2022 was the second Global Encryption Day, organized by the Global Encryption Coalition (https://www.globalencryption.org/2022/06/global-encryption-day-2022/), of which the Tor Project is a member. Global Encryption Day to highlight why encryption matters and to advocate for its advancement and protection.
Global Encryption Day was also a day for all of us to highlight services that should be encrypted—but are not yet. That's why we've called on platforms to do what’s right: make DMs safe. We’re demanding that Big Tech finally bring the protection of end-to-end encryption to DMs in their products—not as a hidden “added feature”—but as the default setting.
Join us to demand that Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple protect our private messages and implement default end-to-end encryption immediately: https://www.makedmssafe.com.
Alpha testers needed for Tor Browser 12.0a4
https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-120a4/
Your help is needed to test a number of new changes in Tor Browser 12.0a4, including the following features:
Multi-locale bundles (Desktop)
tor-launcher migration (Desktop)
Onion Auth fixes (Desktop)
Always prioritize .onion sites (Android)
Unified Español locale (Desktop and Android)
What to test, how to report any discoveries, and more details about all of these features is on our blog now. Please consider volunteering as an alpha tester and making sure important features work before they come to the stable release!
New Releases
Tor Browser 12.0a4 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-120a4/
(Oct. 31) Tor Browser 12.0a4 updates Firefox on Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux to 102.4.0esr. This version includes important security updates to Firefox and GeckoView. There were no Android-specific security updates to backport from the Firefox 106 release.
Tor Browser 11.5.6 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1156/
(Oct. 27) This is an emergency release resolving an issue with Tor Browser 11.5.5's integration of the Snowflake pluggable transport. Users of 11.5.5 will be unable to connect to the Tor Network via the built-in Snowflake bridge until they update to 11.5.6.
Tor Browser 11.5.5 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1155/
(Oct. 25) Tor Browser 11.5.5 backports the security updates from Firefox ESR 102.4 to to Firefox ESR 91.13 on Windows, macOS and Linux and updates GeckoView on Android to 102.4.0esr and includes important security updates. There were no Android-specific security updates to backport from the Firefox 106 release.
Tor Browser 11.5.4 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1154/
(Oct. 14) Tor Browser 11.5.4 backports the security updates from Firefox ESR 102.3 to to Firefox ESR 91.13 on Windows, macOS and Linux and backports the Android-specific security updates from Firefox 104 and 105. It also updates GeckoView on Android to 102.3.0esr.
Arti 1.0.1
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_101_released/
(Oct. 4) This release fixes bugs (including one that would cause a busy-loop), tightens log security, exposes an API for building circuits manually, and contains some preparatory work for anticensorship support.
Upcoming Events
State of the Onion: the Tor Project, November 9 @ 17:00 UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSyBZ7GIzJY
Tor at Bread&Net 2022, November 15
https://blog.torproject.org/event/2022-bread-and-net/
Roger Dingledine at DARPA Forward, November 15-16
https://blog.torproject.org/event/roger-darpa-forward/
State of the Onion: the Tor community, November 16 @ 17:00 UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-7k0PjnBbk
Tor Localization Hangout, November 18 @ 12:00 UTC
https://blog.torproject.org/event/2022-11-18-l10n-hangout/
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
--
The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.
Published on 2022-09-07
Supporting Tor users via Telegram
When the Russian government blocked Tor in December 2021, the Tor Project Anti-censorship Team launched a new Telegram bot to share bridges and help users to circumvent censorship.
Because we've see our initial Telegram bot help thousands of users, and because Telegram is a very popular messaging platform in the Russian-speaking community, we're launching more services on Telegram:
TorProject: Our official news channel on Telegram. We will deliver essential updates from the Tor Project.
GetTor_bot (https://t.me/GetTor_bot): If you can't download Tor Browser through our website, you can get a copy of Tor Browser delivered to you via GetTor. GetTor is a service that automatically responds to messages with links to the latest version of Tor Browser.
GetBridgesBot (https://t.me/GetBridgesbot): If you can't access Tor because the network is censored in your region, you can request a Tor bridge using this Telegram bot and use this bridge to circumvent censorship.
TorProjectSupportBot (https://t.me/TorProjectSupportBot): If you can't connect to Tor or you need help setting up Tor Browser, a live Tor user support specialist will help you. The help desk is available in English and Russian, and it's open for all users living in censored regions.
Join us on Telegram and help spread the word that these resources are available!
Open call for Tor Board members
https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/board-of-directors
We are happy to announce that for the first time the Tor Project Board has published an open call for candidates to become new members of the Board: https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/board-of-directors/. The goal of this open call is to provide a way for the whole community to participate in this process.
We believe that this new process will not only help us find great new members for our Board but will also generate new relationships and get us closer to the communities that Tor serves.
If you are interested in giving back to Tor in a governance role, we encourage you to submit an application before Sept. 30.
Arti 1.0.0 is released and ready for production use 🎉
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_100_released
Back in 2020, we started work on a new implementation of the Tor protocols in the Rust programming language. With Arti 1.0.0, we believe it's ready for wider use.
This means that you should be able to use Arti in the real world to get a similar degree of privacy, usability, and stability to what you would with a C client Tor. The APIs should be (more or less) stable for embedders. You can now use arti proxy to connect to the Tor network to anonymize your network connections.
To achieve this, we we've made many improvements to Arti. For a complete list of changes, and to learn more about Arti 1.0.0, visit our blog: https://blog.torproject.org/arti_100_released.
New Releases
Arti 1.0.0
(Sept. 2) Arti is now ready for production use. You should be able to use it in the real world, to get a similar degree of privacy, usability, and stability to what you would with a C client Tor.
Tor Browser 11.5.3 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1153
(August 30) Tor Browser 11.5.3 (Android) fixes bugs with bundled extensions and user add-ons.
Tor Browser 11.5.2 (Android,Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1152
(August 29) Tor Browser 11.5.2 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.13.0esr. Updates Tor to 0.4.7.10 and NoScript to 11.4.9.
Urgent: Stable Release 0.4.5.14, 0.4.6.12 and 0.4.7.10
https://forum.torproject.net/t/urgent-stable-release-0-4-5-14-0-4-6-12-and-0-4-7-10/4270
(August 12) Relays should these latest stables as soon as possible. On August 12, we were contacted by IPFire that the database starting from August 10 is missing ARIN networks. This release reverts to a database from August 9. Not upgrading can badly affect circuit path selection if country code are used in your torrc file.
Stable Release 0.4.5.13, 0.4.6.11 and 0.4.7.9
https://forum.torproject.net/t/stable-release-0-4-5-13-0-4-6-11-and-0-4-7-9/4259
(August 11) These releases have multiple minor fixes that were backported for 0.4.5.x and 0.4.6.x. The rest of the fixes aim to help with the ongoing DDoS on the network mainly to reduce memory pressure on the relays and improve our DoS mitigation measures.
Tor Browser 12.0a1 (Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-120a1
(August 9) Tor Browser 12.0a1 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.12.0esr. Updates Tor Launcher to 0.2.38, OpenSSL to 1.1.1q, and Go to 1.17.13.
Arti 0.6.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_060_released
(August 3) Arti 0.6.0 reworks a large number of internal APIs, provides better error messages, and provides more of Tor's cryptographic handshakes. Fixes major compatibility issues on Windows and iOS.
What We're Reading
Serving Websites Privately Over Tor Onion Services (From Your Laptop!), Guardian Project.
https://guardianproject.info/2022/08/29/serving-websites-privately-over-tor-onion-services-from-your-laptop
Google’s Manifest V3 Still Hurts Privacy, Security, and Innovation, EFF.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/googles-manifest-v3-still-hurts-privacy-security-innovation
The Pitfalls of Closed-Source Whistleblowing Software, Whistleblowing Network International.
https://whistleblowingnetwork.org/Our-Work/Spotlight/Stories/The-Pitfalls-of-Closed-Source-Whistleblowing-Softw
How Tor Is Fighting—and Beating—Russian Censorship, WIRED.
https://www.wired.com/story/tor-browser-russia-blocks
How Russia Took Over Ukraine’s Internet in Occupied Territories, The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/09/technology/ukraine-internet-russia-censorship.html
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
Published on 2022-07-12
What you made possible in internet freedom: 2021 Annual Report
https://blog.torproject.org/2020-2021-annual-report/
We're thrilled to share the Tor Project's latest Annual Report with you.
In the last year, the Tor community has mobilized against increasing global censorship, more than doubled the number of bridges on the Tor network, and responded to tens of thousands of user support requests. We've also worked hard to make Tor faster, improve the health of our network, and connect with our community through training and events.
Take a moment to read more about mobilizing against internet censorship in this year's annual report (page 4), alongside other achievements this year. Thank you for making Tor and the freedom it provides online possible.
Help Tor users everywhere—volunteer as an alpha tester
https://blog.torproject.org/vounteer-as-an-alpha-tester/
Tor Browser receives hundreds of changes a year: from updates to Firefox – the underlying browser on which Tor Browser is based – to entirely new features designed to help protect at-risk and censored users. However, each change made to Tor Browser has the potential to introduce new and sometimes elusive bugs.
In order to find and fix these bugs before they reach the majority of our users, we apply updates to an early version of Tor Browser known as Tor Browser Alpha before releasing them more widely. Then, as a small nonprofit, we rely on a community of volunteer testers to try out our alphas before their general release in order to keep Tor Browser available on so many platforms.
Volunteering to become an alpha tester is one of the most accessible and effective ways you can help at-risk users stay connected to Tor.
By spending a few minutes testing each new alpha release and reporting bugs back to our developers, you'll help provide a more stable Tor Browser for millions of users around the world. Join our community as an alpha tester and help users everywhere safely access Tor.
Update on slow speed and overload on the Tor network
Over the past several weeks, a DDoS attack has targeted the Tor network. You may have noticed an impact on Tor performance. We've deployed improvements to help mitigate this attack, which have helped user experience, along with waning overload. As the ongoing DDoS attack strategy changes, we continue to investigate and implement mitigations. For more details, see our thread on the Tor Forum and feel free to join the discussion.
Coming soon: Tor Browser 11.5 👀
Big changes to routing around censorship against Tor are coming to Tor Browser 11.5, slated for release at the end of July. Keep your eyes open for the reveal of Connection Assist, a brand-new feature that makes discovering censorship against Tor Browser, and understanding what to do about it, much easier.
Arti 0.5.0 is released: Robustness and API improvements
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_050_released/
Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. Arti 0.5.0 adds cryptographic acceleration, a useful set of toplevel build features, reachable-address filtering, detection for failed directory downloads, and numerous cleanups.
What's next? In the short term, we're working for feature-parity with Tor in netflow resistance and congestion control. We already have some backend code, but a complete implementation will take a while. Beyond that, between now and our 1.0.0 milestone in September, we're aiming to make Arti a production-quality Tor client for direct internet access.
We need your help to test Arti, find bugs, and suggest improvements! Visit our blog for more details about Arti 0.5.0 and how to get involved.
New Releases
Tor Browser 11.5a13 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a13/
(July 2) Tor Browser 11.5a13 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.10.0esr.
Tor Browser 11.0.15 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11015/
(July 2) Updates Tor to 0.4.7.8.
Arti 0.5.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_050_released/
(June 24) This release adds cryptographic acceleration, a useful set of toplevel build features, reachable-address filtering, detection for failed directory downloads, and numerous cleanups.
Tor Browser 11.0.14 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11014/
(June 7) Tor Browser 11.0.14 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.10.0esr.
Upcoming Events
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), July 11, 2022 – July 15, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/pets-2022/
May Contain Hackers (MCH2022) - NL, July 22, 2022 – July 26, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/mch2022/
Tor Localization Hangout, July 15 @ 12:00 UTC
https://blog.torproject.org/event/localization_hangout/
Usenix Security, August 10, 2022 – August 12, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/usenix-security-2022/
DEF CON (Las Vegas), August 11, 2022 – August 14, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/defcon-2022/
Tor Localization Hangout, August 19 @ 12:00 UTC
https://blog.torproject.org/event/localization_hangout-august/
What We're Reading
México es el país con el mayor ancho de banda en la red Tor en América Latina, El Economista.
https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/tecnologia/Mexico-es-el-pais-con-el-mayor-ancho-de-banda-en-la-red-Tor-en-America-Latina-20220705-0082.html
Fear, Uncertainty, and Period Trackers, by Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, and Emma Weil.
https://medium.com/@Kendra_Serra/fear-uncertainty-and-period-trackers-340ab8fdff74
Мескио из команды Tor: «Наша задача — помочь активистским сообществам безопасно работать в онлайне», Teplitsa ST.
https://te-st.ru/2022/06/17/meskio-tor-interview/
Keep Your Abortion Private & Secure, Digital Defense Fund.
https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy/#history
Britain must end its silence on Egyptian hunger striker Alaa Abd El Fattah, family demand, The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/05/britain-must-end-its-silence-on-egyptian-hunger-striker-alaa-abd-el-fattah-family-demand
The genesis of 'privacy by design', Politico.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2022/06/08/the-genesis-of-privacy-by-design-00038186
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay/
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org/
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-phr-tn1
--
The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/torproject
Facebook: https://facebook.com/torproject
Instagram: https://instagram.com/torproject
Mastodon: http://mastodon.social/@torproject
Tor Forum: https://forum.torproject.net/
Published on 2022-06-03
Congestion Control Arrives in Tor 0.4.7-stable!
https://blog.torproject.org/congestion-contrl-047/
We've released Tor 0.4.7.7, the first stable Tor release with support for congestion control. Congestion control eliminates the speed limit of current Tor, as well as reduces latency by minimizing queue lengths at relays. This results in significant performance improvements in Tor, as well as increased utilization of our network capacity. That means: faster Tor!
Tor Browser users: Upgrade to the latest version of Tor Browser, and you'll get the speed improvement benefits made possible with congestion control.
Exit relay operators: In order for users to see the benefits of congestion control improvements, we need our Exit relay operators to upgrade to the new Tor 0.4.7 stable series, asap! Packages for Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora/CentOS/RHEL are already available.
All relay operators: Non-exit relay operators do not need to upgrade for congestion control to work, but this also means you may be surprised by the network effects of congestion control traffic running through your relays. You may need to set bandwidth limits.
Ban on Tor's website overturned in Russian court
With the help of digital rights group Roskomsvoboda, we successfully overturned a ban on the Tor Project's website in Russia! This means that the Russian governmental agency responsible for censorship will have to remove Tor from its block list.
While this is a huge victory for Tor and internet freedom, the fight is not over.
We will be returning to court for more hearings and litigation, and this time, Google is included as a third party in the case, as the Russian authorities are demanding that Tor Browser for Android be removed from the Play Store. We will keep you updated on new developments as they happen. Today, we celebrate the victory! Read more about the case on Roskomsvoboda's blog in Russian.
The Tor Project + OONI + Google Summer of Code
We are happy that the Tor Project is again participating in Google Summer of Code. Mentorship programs are very important for open source projects as they help us have one more way of bringing new contributors to our projects. Starting in June this year we will have three contributors working with mentors and their projects through Google Summer of Code:
Arti 0.4.0 is released: Robustness and API improvements
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_040_released/
Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. Arti 0.4.0 wraps up our changes to the configuration logic (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/arti/-/issues/285), detects several kinds of unsafe filesystem configuration (https://docs.rs/fs-mistrust/latest/fs_mistrust/), and has a refactored directory manager to help us tolerate far more kinds of bootstrap failures (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/arti/-/issues/329).
Next, we're working for feature-parity with Tor in netflow resistance and congestion control. We hope to have some progress by our next release, but we might not be finished by then.
We need your help to test Arti, find bugs, and suggest improvements! Visit our blog for more details about Arti 0.4.0 and how to get involved.
New Releases
Arti 0.4.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_040_released/
(May 31) This release wraps up our changes to the configuration logic, detects several kinds of unsafe filesystem configuration, and has a refactored directory manager to help us tolerate far more kinds of bootstrap failures.
Tor Browser 11.5a12 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a12/
(May 30) This version includes important security updates to Firefox.
Tor Browser 11.5a10 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a10/
(May 26) Tor Browser 11.5a10 updates Firefox to 99.0b3 and includes bugfixes and stability improvements.
Torsocks 2.4.0
https://forum.torproject.net/t/torsocks-release-2-4-0/3425
(May 25) This release has several bugfixes, fixing a number of compatibility issues and crashes, as well as several significant behavior changes.
Tor Browser 11.0.13
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11013/
(May 23) This version includes important security updates to Firefox. We also updated Tor to 0.4.7.7. The first stable Tor release with support for congestion control.
Tor Browser 11.5a11 (Windows/macOS/Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a11/
(May 20) This version includes important security updates to Firefox. Tor Browser 11.5a11 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.9.0esr.
Tor Browser 11.0.12 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11012/
(May 12) This version solves the startup crash that many users reported and updates GeckoView to 96.0.3.
Arti 0.3.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_030_released/
(May 6) This release has bugfixes for many robustness issues affecting failures to bootstrap and many smaller bugfixes, features, and infrastructure improvements.
Tails 5.0
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tails-50/
(May 3) Tails 5.0 is the first based on Debian 11 (Bullseye). It brings new versions of a lot of the software included in Tails and new OpenPGP tools.
Tor Browser 11.0.11 (Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11011/
(May 3) This version includes important security updates to Firefox and updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.9.0esr.
Upcoming Events
Sysadmin 101: for New Relay Operators, June 4, 2022 @ 19:00 UTC
RightsCon, June 6, 2022 - June 10, 2022
Digital Rights Job Fair, June 16
Tor Localization Hangout, June 17 @ 12:00 UTC
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), July 11, 2022 - July 15, 2022
May Contain Hackers (MCH2022) - NL, July 22, 2022 - July 26, 2022
Tor Localization Hangout, July 15 @ 12:00 UTC
Usenix Security, August 10, 2022 - August 12, 2022
DEF CON (Las Vegas), August 11, 2022 - August 14, 2022
What We're Reading
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay/
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org/
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-phr-tn1
--
The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.
Published on 2022-05-01
Malicious relays and the health of the Tor network
https://blog.torproject.org/malicious-relays-health-tor-network/
Running relays is a significant contribution to our project and we've designed that process so that the barrier of entry is low, making it possible for a variety of people with different backgrounds to participate. This openness is important as it makes our network (and the privacy guarantees it offers) more robust and resilient to attacks. However, that low threshold of contributing to our network also makes it easier for malicious operators to attack our users, e.g. via Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks at exit nodes.
Our latest blog post explains what we're doing to detect malicious actors (and remove their relays), how we developed these strategies, and what we're working on to make it harder for bad operators to run attacks. Additionally, we want to shine some light on this part of our day-to-day work at Tor. Because this is an arms race, we have to balance being transparent with effective detection of malicious actors. In this post we hope to offer more transparency about our approach without compromising the methods we use to keep our users safe.
Tor in the news
https://blog.torproject.org/tor-media-2021/
For the past few years, we’ve shared a post summarizing media related to Tor that was published during the previous year. On our blog (https://blog.torproject.org/tor-media-2021/), take a look at the moments Tor landed in the headlines in 2021, including coverage of onion service advancements, cryptocurrency donation records, our advocacy work, and changes in the censorship arms race.
Arti 0.2.0 is released: Your somewhat-stable API is here!
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_010_released/
Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. With version 0.2.0, our focus is on making Arti production-quality, by stress-testing the code, hunting for likely bugs and adding missing features that we know from experience that users will need.
From a user's point of view, most of the changes in Arti 0.2.0 are for improved performance and reliability. For developers, the most important change to be aware of is the new configuration code.
Whether you're a user or a developer, please give Arti a try, and let us know what you think. The sooner we learn what you need, the better our chances of getting it into an early milestone! Learn about Arti 0.2.0 and how to give it a try on our blog: https://blog.torproject.org/arti_020_released/.
New Releases
Tor stable release 0.4.7.7
https://forum.torproject.net/t/stable-release-0-4-7-7/3108
(April 27) This is the first stable version of the 0.4.7.x series including several major bugfixes, several major features and, finally, after years of work, congestion con
Tor Browser 11.5a9 (Windows/macOS/Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a9/
(April 26) Tor Browser 11.5a9 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.8.0esr.
Tor Browser 11.0.10 (Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-11010/
(April 7) This version includes important security updates to Firefox and updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.8.0esr.
Arti 0.2.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_020_released/
(April 3) For users, most of the changes in this version of Arti are for improved performance and reliability. For developers, the most important change to be aware of is the new configuration code.
Upcoming Events
AI and Human Rights Forum: Censorship Dialogues, April 29, 2022 @ 18:00 UTC
https://blog.torproject.org/event/AI-Human-Rights-Forum-Censorship/
RightsCon, June 6, 2022 - June 10, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/rightscon-2022/
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), July 11, 2022 - July 15, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/pets-2022/
May Contain Hackers (MCH2022) - NL, July 22, 2022 - July 26, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/mch2022/
Usenix Security, August 10, 2022 - August 12, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/usenix-security-2022/
DEF CON (Las Vegas), August 11, 2022 - August 14, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/defcon-2022/
What We're Reading
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay/
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org/
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-phr-tn1
--
The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.
Published on 2022-03-07
More than 1,000 new bridges added to the Tor network
https://blog.torproject.org/wrapping-up-bridges-campaign/
Last November, the Tor Project launched a campaign to get more bridges (https://blog.torproject.org/run-a-bridge-campaign/). The campaign goal was to increase the Tor network size and get 200 new obfs4 bridges. Not only did we achieve our modest goal, but we also reverted the trend of declining bridges in the network. The Tor network now has 2470 running bridges—meaning the number of Tor bridges has almost doubled!
The campaign was such a success for a couple of reasons. First, if you check the number of relays, you can see that in 10 days after the campaign began, we had already achieved the goal of 200 new bridges (https://metrics.torproject.org/networksize.csv?start=2021-10-30&end=2022-01-28). The community was really engaged and very excited to help other Tor users. Plus, it's nice to get Tor swag.
Second, following the relay metrics graph, you can see that after December 7th, the bridges graph increased considerably. This spike happened after we called everyone to fight against the emergent Tor censorship in Russia (https://blog.torproject.org/tor-censorship-in-russia/). Russia has the second largest number of Tor users, just after the United States. As censors are blocking Tor bridges, adding new bridges will help users connect to the Tor network. Read more about the results of the bridge campaign on our blog (https://blog.torproject.org/wrapping-up-bridges-campaign/).
Supporting the Tor community
https://blog.torproject.org/tor-community-partners/
The goal to help internet users privately access an uncensored web has united lots of different people from different places. Fostering this community is very important to us. Because of htis, over the last several years, we've invested in fundraising and operations staff who work together on something we affectionately call the “money machine.” This cross-organizational group handles the behind-the-scenes details of identifying, securing, and managing the resources that make Tor, and the Tor Project, possible.
We envisioned that this infrastructure would benefit more than just the organization, that it would allow us to give back to our community as well. We can be more successful if we could fight for human rights and privacy online in an interconnected, interdependent way–as a community, together.
Over the last year, part of this vision has come to life!
We are happy to share that now the Tor Project has been able to earn grants that include partners, or “subgrantees,” that are paid to help Tor complete a project. We would like to take the opportunity to highlight our partners, the work we’re doing together, and invite you to support them too (https://blog.torproject.org/tor-community-partners/).
Arti 0.1.0 is released: Your somewhat-stable API is here!
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_010_released/
Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. This month, we've reached our 0.1.0 milestone: this means that we now consider Arti's high-level APIs to be "mostly stable", and ready for experimental embedding in other projects.
We rely on users and volunteers to find problems in our software and suggest directions for its improvement. Although Arti isn't yet ready for production use, you can test it as a SOCKS proxy (if you're willing to compile from source) and as an embeddable library (if you don't mind a little API instability).
Whether you're a user or a developer, please give Arti a try, and let us know what you think. The sooner we learn what you need, the better our chances of getting it into an early milestone! Learn about Arti 0.1.0 and how to give it a try on our blog (https://blog.torproject.org/arti_010_released/).
Fighting back against Russia's censorship of Tor
https://tor.roskomsvoboda.org/en
In December 2021, the Russian government began blocking access to https://torproject.org. The Russian digital rights nonprofit Roskomsvoboda (Роскомсвобода, https://twitter.com/RuBlackListNET) and their legal team, representing the interests of The Tor Project and the entire Tor user community in Russia, has submitted a request for annulment of a judicial decision that led to the blocking of Tor.
Roskomsvoboda and the Tor Project believe that the decision of the court is unlawful and a subject to discharge due to the following circumstances:
- The case was heard without the attendance of representatives of the Tor party, which violated their procedural rights and breached of the adversarial proceeding;
- The decision violates the constitutional right to freely provide, receive and disseminate information and protect privacy;
Roskomsvoboda is representing Tor and fighting for privacy in Russia pro bono. Please consider making a donation to support their work (https://tor.roskomsvoboda.org/en).
New Release
Tor Browser 11.5a5 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a5/
(March 3) Tor Browser 11.5a5 updates Firefox to 96.3.0 and includes bugfixes and stability improvements. Notably: we fixed a bug that was preventing users of Android Q and later from downloading files.
Arti 0.1.0
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_010_released/
(March 1) Primary new features are our builder API for constructing TorClient instances, and the ability to create unbootstrapped and bootstrap-on-demand TorClient instances.
Tor Browser 11.5a4 (Windows/macOS/Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a4/
(Feb. 18) This version includes important security updates to Firefox.
Tor Browser 11.0.6 (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1106/
(Feb. 9) This version includes important security updates to Firefox. Tor Browser 11.0.6 updates Firefox on Windows, macOS, and Linux to 91.6.0esr.
Tor Browser 11.0.5 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1105/
(Feb. 7) This version includes important security updates to Firefox. Tor Browser 11.0.5 updates Firefox to 94.1.1 and includes bugfixes and stability improvements.
Arti 0.0.4
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_004_released/
(Feb. 1) There are features in our API for developers who need to isolate all circuits from one another, and for setting per-stream preferences across all streams opened through a client handle. The interfaces for creating and using the main TorClient type are also improved.
Upcoming Events
Tor Localization Hangout, March 18, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/localization_hangout/
RightsCon, June 6, 2022 – June 10, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/rightscon-2022/
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), July 11, 2022 – July 15, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/pets-2022/
May Contain Hackers (MCH2022) - NL, July 22, 2022 – July 26, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/mch2022/
Usenix Security, August 10, 2022 – August 12, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/usenix-security-2022/
DEF CON (Las Vegas), August 11, 2022 – August 14, 2022
https://blog.torproject.org/event/defcon-2022/
What We're Reading
Tor users surge in Russia and Ukraine to access news and circumvent restrictions, Finbold.
https://finbold.com/tor-users-surge-in-russia-and-ukraine-to-access-news-and-circumvent-restrictions/
How to use Tor and Snowflake to circumvent censorship, TNW.
https://thenextweb.com/news/tor-snowflake-to-circumvent-censorship-guide
Behind the stalkerware network spilling the private phone data of hundreds of thousands, TechCrunch.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/22/stalkerware-network-spilling-data/
We Need Answers About the CIA’s Mass Surveillance, EFF.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/we-need-answers-about-cias-mass-surveillance
IRS will end use of facial recognition after widespread privacy concerns, The Verge.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/7/22922212/irs-id-me-facial-recognition-end-privacy-concerns
Experts Challenge Govt's Anti-Encryption Campaign, Open Rights Group.
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/publications/experts-challenge-govts-anti-encryption-campaign/
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay/
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org/
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-phr-tn1
--
The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/torproject
Facebook: https://facebook.com/torproject
Instagram: https://instagram.com/torproject
Mastodon: http://mastodon.social/@torproject
Tor Forum: https://forum.torproject.net/
Published on 2022-02-01
Tor Browser: a legacy of advancing private browsing innovation
https://blog.torproject.org/tor-browser-advancing-privacy-innovation/
You probably know that our user-facing product for providing privacy, safety, and security online is Tor Browser. Tor Browser allows millions of people to easily exercise their human right to privacy, within the framework of a familiar web browser.
For many years, Tor Browser was the only web browser available that provided anything like its level of anti-tracking, anti-fingerprinting, and holistic privacy protections.
Today, we want to share a little bit of Tor Browser history with you--the origins of our features and designs, and how many of our innovative privacy and security features have been adopted by other browsers. Read about the history of Tor Browser, and what's still left to do, on our blog: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-browser-advancing-privacy-innovation/.
2021 Fundraising results: thank you!
https://blog.torproject.org/fundraising-2021-results/
During the last months of each year, the Tor Project (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) holds a fundraiser to ask for your support. Let’s start with the basics—first being THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to this campaign! We want to share some of the results of this effort.
Last year during the same fundraising period, you contributed $376,315. This year, you contributed $940,361 towards helping people exercise their human right to privacy. Year over year, that’s a 150% increase! This includes a generous match from our Friends of Tor—Aspiration, Jon Callas, Craig Newmark, Jesse Powell, Wendy Seltzer, and several anonymous supporters.
Last year, you donated $58,296 in cryptocurrency. This year, about 58% of the total amount you contributed came to us in the form of cryptocurrencies, for a total of $548,647—that’s an 841% increase. Wow! Find out more about fundraising in 2021 at the Tor Project on our blog: https://blog.torproject.org/fundraising-2021-results/.
New Foundations for Tor Network Experimentation
https://blog.torproject.org/new-foundations-tor-network-experimentation/
Network experimentation is of vital importance to the Tor Project's research, development, and deployment processes. Experiments help us understand and estimate the viability of new research ideas, to test out newly written code, and to measure the real world effects of new features. Measurements taken during experiments help us gain confidence that Tor is working how we expect it should be.
Justin Tracey, Ian Goldberg, and Rob Jansen recently published work--Once is Never Enough: Foundations for Sound Statistical Inference in Tor Network Experimentation--that makes it easier to run Tor network experiments under simulation and helps us do a better job of quantifying confidence in simulation results. The research article, video presentation, and slides are available online.
To learn more about this research, read a summary of the article on our blog: https://blog.torproject.org/new-foundations-tor-network-experimentation/.
Arti 0.0.3 is released: Configuration, predictive circuits, and more!
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_003_released/
Arti is our ongoing project to create a working embeddable Tor client in Rust. It’s nowhere near ready to replace the main Tor implementation in C, but we believe that it’s the future.
We're working towards our 0.1.0 milestone in early March, where our main current priorities are stabilizing our APIs, and resolving issues that prevent integration. We're planning to do releases every month or so until we get to that milestone.
We need your help! We need feedback on our APIs. Sure, we think we're making them more complete and ergonomic… but it's the users' opinion that matters! Check out how to give feedback on Arti, and find out what's new in the latest release, on our blog.
New Releases
Arti 0.0.4
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_004_released/
(Feb. 1) Refactoring, rustls, and more!
Tor Browser 11.5a3 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a3/
(Jan. 27) Tor Browser 11.5a3 updates Firefox to 94.1.1 and includes bugfixes and stability improvements.
Tor Browser 11.5a2 (Windows, macOS, Linux)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-115a2/
(Jan. 26) Tor Browser 11.5a2 updates Firefox to 91.5.0esr and includes bugfixes and stability improvements. Additionally, the browser landing page gets the usual Tor Browser look and feel back, removing the parts of our year end donation campaign.
Tor Release 0.3.5.18
https://forum.torproject.net/t/release-0-3-5-18/1871
(Jan. 24) This is the very last release of the 0.3.5.x series as it is end-of-life on February 1st, 2022. We strongly recommend anyone still on 0.3.5.x to update to our latest stable which is currently 0.4.6.9.
Arti 0.0.3
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_003_released/
(Jan. 14) Configuration, predictive circuits, and more!
Tor Browser 11.0.4
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1104/
(Jan. 11) This version includes important security updates to Firefox. Tor Browser 11.0.4 updates Firefox to 91.5.0esr and gives our landing page the usual Tor Browser look and feel back, removing the parts of our year end donation campaign.
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Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay/
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org/
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-phr-tn1
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The Tor Project is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization advancing human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open-source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.