[tor-reports] Pearl Crescent Report – August 2014

[Mark Smith]

Tor-related work that the Pearl Crescent team did in August
(Kathy Brade and Mark Smith):

* Firefox updater for Tor Browser: the updater patches have landed
   and will be included in TB 4.0a2 (if all goes well, people will
   be able to use the built-in updater to upgrade to 4.0.next).
   Thanks again to Nicolas for implementing the update
   responder/generator script.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/4234
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12622
   The main work we did for the updater in August was to rebase our
   patches so they could easily be merged into 4.0a2, and to fix
   some update channel related issues in the browser code and in
   the TB build scripts.


* Tor Launcher:
We removed the firewall questions from the setup wizard in TB 4.0.
Hopefully this will reduce some confusion during initial setup.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11405

We added a feedback "bubble" that is displayed after the Tor log is 
copied to the clipboard.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12444

We added riseup.net to the Bridge Relay help screen.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12895

We tried and failed to reliably reproduce the start up hangs that
some people are experiencing.
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/10804

We spent a little time on various other issues, including:
     "Show Tor log in TorBrowser"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/9516

     "Improve Tor Launcher's behavior if tor exits"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11199

     "Decide how to handle multiple meek backends in Tor Launcher"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12777


* Tor Browser:  We assisted with bug triage and worked on
   various issues, including:

     "Tor Browser wont start via pinned link in windows start menu"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6062

     "Only display Canvas message for first parties; simply log third
         parties" (code review)
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/7265

     "Make 'Not Now' the default button for TorBrowser's canvas
         permission dialogue" (assisted Isis plus code review)
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12684

     "Make meek-client-torbrower take the firefox command as a parameter"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12716

     "I can't get the TorBrowser to start fully under OSX 10.6.8"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12756

     "-no-remote prevents using Tor Browser as default browser"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12763

     "TBB/Vidalia/Power Consumption"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12784

     "OSX: tor dmg encourages installation in /Applications"
     https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12966


* We participated in the weekly Tor Browser dev meetings on IRC and
   in various design discussions on IRC and on the mailing lists.


* Planned for September 2014:
     - Rebase the updater patches for Firefox ESR31.
     - Help resolve any real world updater issues that arise.
     - Review and enhance the ESR31 rebased DOM Storage patches.
     - Review and enhance the ESR31 rebased Canvas patches.
     - Assist with other ESR31-related work.
     - Continue to add polish to Tor Launcher with a specific focus
       on usability issues.

-- 
Mark Smith
Pearl Crescent, LLC
http://pearlcrescent.com/