[tor-bugs] #7494 [Firefox Patch Issues]: Create local homepage for TBB

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#7494: Create local homepage for TBB
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 Reporter:  mikeperry                  |          Owner:  mikeperry
     Type:  enhancement                |         Status:  new      
 Priority:  major                      |      Milestone:           
Component:  Firefox Patch Issues       |        Version:           
 Keywords:  tbb-usability, tbb-bounty  |         Parent:           
   Points:                             |   Actualpoints:           
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Comment(by mikeperry):

 Replying to [comment:1 phobos]:
 > We should use the page as is, with infoboxes and all. The problem right
 now is that people get to check and have no idea what it means nor what to
 do next. In testing, a huge number of people see the check page and then
 flip to their non-tor browser and assume everything is anonymized. In
 testing, the new success/fail pages worked much better. We should change
 "Your Browser" to say "This Browser".

 For clarity: This ticket is for replacing the browser homepage with
 something local as opposed to hitting check.torproject.org (the server for
 which is overloaded by TBB homepage activity as you pointed out in #6156).
 This ticket is not for changing the text on check.torproject.org itself.

 I agree that we need to make it clear that "This Browser" is the browser
 to use and we need to change the "Your Browser" string to reflect that.
 But there's also a couple of sections of text that don't make sense with a
 local browser-sourced homepage.

 In particular, the left infobox either needs new text or needs to be
 removed, as we have no exit IP for a local page. The translation footer is
 also useless, as the homepage will be automatically localized to the TBB
 locale that user downloaded.

 The right two infoboxes are OK, I guess, if we want to busy up the
 homepage with text and see who actually reads any of it it in user
 testing.

 > He purposely created the page in text and css to make it portable and
 lightweight.

 That's fine. For a local homepage though, the text needs to use DTD
 anchors from Torbutton's locale strings, though, or it won't get
 translated or localized.

 > I'm not convinced we should change to startpage, as DDG supports Tor
 moreso than SP. SP is already the default search engine in TBB.

 The search engine box should definitely be configurable, but I think it's
 debatable that DDG has done more for us at this point. Both companies seem
 to have taken actions entirely out of their own self-interest. DDG's exit
 enclave/hidden service might improve their service slightly for Tor (this
 too, is debatable, since a hidden service is overkill and exit enclaves
 are mostly non-functional), but their 'duckduckgo' Tor relay is configured
 to carry almost no additional Tor traffic (it appears capped at 128k/sec
 right now). StartPage went to bat for us on the DoS/Captcha issue and has
 raised our profile with Google as a result, but that's also because we're
 a high profile project and a significant chunk of their userbase.

 > I strongly suggest we use the new start/fail pages as is and work off
 the empirical data of feedback and testing.

 Ok. It seems like lots of text and layout are more likely to cause them to
 ignore all of the text on the page including the title and searchbox
 (which is arguably what is *most* likely to cause them to use the current
 browser window), but I guess we can user-test with varying numbers of
 additional text boxes and footer paragraphs to find this out.

 I think it's worth noting that most search engines and browsers have
 decided that keeping the landing page clean is the best way to get people
 to actually use the search box, though.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/7494#comment:2>
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