Tor Browser 7.0 released
A new version of Tor Browser, a Firefox-based web browser with Tor functionality added to it, has been released on June 7, 2017.
Tor Browser 7.0 introduces support for Firefox's multi-process architecture e10s and content sandboxing as the major new features of the release.
The browser itself is now based on Firefox 52 ESR, the most recent Extended Support Release version of the Firefox web browser. You can check out what is new in Firefox 52 here. Note that Firefox 52 ESR ships with improvements made in previous versions of the browser as well.
The multi-process implementation is available across all supported operating systems. The same is not true for content sandboxing however, as only Linux and Mac OS X versions of Tor Browser 7.0 may make use of that.
The Windows content sandboxing is still in the works, and can be tracked on the official bug tracker.
Tor Browser 7.0 released
The switch to Firefox 52 ESR as the code base of Tor Browser brought changes to the system requirements. Tor Browser 7 on Windows for instance does not run on devices that don't support SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2).
AMD and Intel added support for SSE2 back in 2001 and 2003, and most processors sold in the past decade support the functionality. Still, it may mean that the new Tor Browser version won't run on systems that are older than 15 or so years.
On Apple systems, Mac OS X 10.9 is now the minimum requirement for Tor Browser 7.0.
As far as tracking and fingerprinting protection or resistance is concerned, multiple changes and improvements were made in the new version.
The highlights in our tracking and fingerprinting resistance improvements are: cookies, view-source requests and the Permissions API are isolated to the first party URL bar domain now to enhance our tracking related defenses. On the fingerprinting side we disabled and/or patched several new features, among them WebGL2, the WebAudio, Social, SpeechSynthesis, and Touch APIs, and the MediaError.message property.
The team that developers the Tor Browser hardens the base version of the Firefox web browser in many different ways to improve privacy of its users.
The new version of the Tor Browser has a couple of known issues that users need to be aware of before making the upgrade to the new version:
- PDF download button is broken. A workaround is to right-click on the PDF file and select the "save as" option of the context menu.
- There is a NoScript bug right now that freezes some websites. The team hopes that the issue is addressed in a NoScript update soon. If it is not, it plans to release Tor Brower 7.0.1 instead which fixes it. Tor Browser ships with NoScript which means that it affects all users of the browser.
- ALSA is no longer supported on Linux. To have sound in the browser on Linux, PulseAudio needs to be available.
The full changelog has been posted on the Tor project website.
Now You: Do you use Tor or the Tor Browser?
I uninstalled Tor before reinstalling this version, contrary to previous updates ; and suddenly, it’s running far quicker.
Installing v.7, from a non-admin account, into Program Files, results in a permission problem. The software won’t start. I had to install it in a custom folder, outside of Program Files or Program Files x86. The default folder offered upon install is really, really weird : it’s on the user’s desktop. Don’t know how long this has been going on. Isn’t installing software outside of Windows’ Program Files folders supposed to be a security risk ? My understanding is, programs installed where Windows intends to are highly write-protected, and therefore somewhat immunised against malware. Wouldn’t that be a requirement for a Web-facing program, such as Tor ?
I had Cloud Flare problems before v.7. One frequently accessed site won’t pass the Cloud Flare wall, unless exit node is in another country.
yes, Anonymous (12:40 AM), same here.
This annoying cloudflare-shit (sorry for that) started in version 7.0a3 in April and continues in 7.0a4 (the latest TBB). That’s why I stay with version 7.0a2 (March 2017). No problem with cloudflare….
Unfortunately I can’t give you a link to this version…. it’s gone. They deleted it from their download site (https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/)
Cheers!
updating myself: with Tor-Version 7.5a1 the problems with Cloudflare are gone! Tested it for two days now… no problems anymore!
Get the latest version of Tor here -> https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/7.5a1/
Tom
Witch,,,one do I get? There are so many to chose from! ,,,But,,,this may be a good question though..
Here it is : http://web.archive.org/web/20170515172623/https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/
Maybe someone archived the page. Just check web.archive.org or archive.is
Strangely suddenly a LOT more CloudFlare hosted websites started requiring Google captchas. EVEN THIS VERY WEBSITE!
How does one browse anonymously anymore when this CloudFlare cancer is everywhere?
It’s a problem at Cloudflare’s part and according to this comment by a Tor Browser developer it will get fixed next week,
> The graphical passwords (I assume you mean things like “Select all the cars”-style puzzles) are provided by Cloudflare. They are working on a fix for this problem. It should be ready next week if all goes well. Not sure how long it will take to get it rolled out globally, though.
> https://blog.torproject.org/comment/268994#comment-268994
Will have to use Decentralized VPN called Mysterium Network when its ready.
is Tor ever gonna be made available as a 64 Bit version on Windows ?
why do you need 64 bits?
They’re planning on it, here’s a ticket in their bug tracker on that: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/20636