[tor-dev] Tor Messenger 0.1.0b4 is released

[Sukhbir Singh]

We are pleased to announce another public beta release of Tor Messenger. This
release addresses a number of stability and usability issues, and includes the
default bridge configurations for pluggable transports.

The initial public release [0] was a success in that it garnered a lot of
useful feedback. We tried to respond to all your concerns in the comments of
the blog post [1] but also collected and aggregated a FAQ of the most common
questions [2].

* Before Upgrading

Before upgrading to the new release, you will need to backup your OTR keys or
simply generate new ones. Please see the following steps to back them up [3].

In our eagerness to build on work done by Tor Browser, we made the decision to
store your profile directory inside the application bundle. This complicates
matters when you want to use the same accounts and keys across updates,
especially while we don't have an automatic updater [4].

Also, as was vociferously pointed out by some of our early adopters, this
probably isn't a very intuitive user experience. Copying the extracted
application to someone else's computer would unknowingly transfer your
accounts and OTR keys. It's unclear if this is commonly done and we'd love
feedback on this point to understand the urgency of the issue.

In future releases, we plan on revisiting this decision. The number one item
on our roadmap is porting Tor Browser's updater patches [5] so that keeping
Tor Messenger up-to-date is seamless and automatic. We also plan to add a UI
to make importing OTR keys and accounts from Pidgin, and other clients, as
easy as possible [6].

* Downloads

Please note that Tor Messenger is _still in beta_. The purpose of this release
is to help test the application and provide feedback. *At-risk users should
not depend on it for their privacy and safety*.

Linux (32-bit)
    https://dist.torproject.org/tormessenger/0.1.0b4/tor-messenger-linux32-0.1.0b4_en-US.tar.xz

Linux (64-bit)
    https://dist.torproject.org/tormessenger/0.1.0b4/tor-messenger-linux64-0.1.0b4_en-US.tar.xz

Windows
    https://dist.torproject.org/tormessenger/0.1.0b4/tormessenger-install-0.1.0b4_en-US.exe

OS X (Mac)
    https://dist.torproject.org/tormessenger/0.1.0b4/TorMessenger-0.1.0b4-osx64_en-US.dmg

sha256sums.txt
    https://dist.torproject.org/tormessenger/0.1.0b4/sha256sums.txt

sha256sums.txt.asc
    https://dist.torproject.org/tormessenger/0.1.0b4/sha256sums.txt.asc

The sha256sums.txt file containing hashes of the bundles is signed with the
key 0x6887935AB297B391 (fingerprint: 3A0B 3D84 3708 9613 6B84 5E82 6887 935A
B297 B391).

* Changelog

Here is the complete changelog since v0.1.0b2:

Tor Messenger 0.1.0b4 -- November 22 2015
  All Platforms
    Bug 17492: Include default bridges configuration
    Use tor and the pluggable transports from tor-browser 5.0.4
    Bug 17552: Instantbird should handle XMPP message stanzas with subjects
    ctypes-otr
      Bug 17539: Pass username when interpolating resent string
      Bug 15179: Add an OTR Preferences item to the Tools menu
    Use the FIREFOX_42_0_RELEASE tag on mozilla-release
    Use the THUNDERBIRD_42_0b2_RELEASE tag on comm-release
    Bug 16489: Prevent automatic logins at startup
    Update Tor Messenger logo in Tor Launcher
  Mac
    Bug 16476: Themes preference is positioned incorrectly
    Bug 17456: Application hang when navigating the preferences menu
    
Tor Messenger 0.1.0b3 -- October 30 2015
  Windows
    Bug 17453: Fix Tor Messenger crash when starting up in Windows

[0] - https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-messenger-beta-chat-over-tor-easily/
[1] - https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-messenger-beta-chat-over-tor-easily/#comments
[2] - https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorMessenger/FAQ
[3] - https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorMessenger/FAQ#WherearemyOTRkeysstoredHowcanIpreservethemacrossupdates
[4] - https://bugs.torproject.org/13861
[5] - https://bugs.torproject.org/14388
[6] - https://bugs.torproject.org/16526

-- 
Sukhbir
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