Firefox browser could soon receive a Tor mode add-on that would significantly enhance privacy by connecting to the Tor network.
While the final goal is to implement a fully-featured TOR mode in the browser natively, such a project takes time, and members of Mozilla and the Tor team discussed the challenges at a recent meeting.
Their proposal was to develop a browser add-on that would enable this Tor mode in Firefox, as this approach could give the two organizations enough time to plan on the engineering work that is needed for this new feature.
The extension wouldn’t be installed by default in Firefox, so users would have to download it manually from Mozilla’s website in order to enable the Tor mode.
“It would allow users to experience what an eventual full integration with Tor could look like. It could also help gauge interest by counting downloads, etc,” the Tor team explains.
“A privileged addon is one with elevated privileges compared to a standard WebExtension. It can call XPCOM functions, for example. A privileged addon needs to be signed by Mozilla, or something, but the idea for this proposal is to have it produced and distributed by Mozilla anyway, so that's not a problem.”
A decision on this add-on hasn’t been made just yet, but developers working for Mozilla and The Tor Project have already discussed several technical details.
“The addon would configure the browser to use tor as a proxy, as well as setting various prefs to prevent proxy bypasses and resist fingerprinting, much like those set by Tor Browser,” they explain.
Right now, the devs believe the best way to go is for the add-on to allow for a dedicated Tor mode button to launch a dedicated profile in a new window.
No ETA has been provided as to when public testing could begin.
SemmBall on July 28th, 2019 at 10:50 UTC »
Damn why is everyone here so stuck-up? This way Firefox wants to bring privacy even more to the forefront of the internet conversation. Stop gatekeeping this shit and be happy that hopefully privacy is becoming the norm again.
Big_Stiffy on July 28th, 2019 at 07:43 UTC »
Awesome! This is a feature of Brave browser already and it works like a dream.
WeranioRacker on July 28th, 2019 at 04:34 UTC »
Please no.
This will have detrimental consequences unless done exactly right.
This must EXACTLY mimic the original TOR browser with zero exceptions
Why? Because people might be able to be tracked via add-ons or other deviations from the generic TOR identity.
Edit: my main concern is not add ons, but just browser size.