[tor-reports] Pearl Crescent Report – December 2015

[Mark Smith]

Tor-related work completed by the Pearl Crescent team in December 2015
(Kathy Brade and Mark Smith):

* Tor Browser Updater:

Updater activity during December was minimal, but we did make 
contributions to a few tickets:
   "Have a test to check that Tor Browser updater is working"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17662

   "need to add aboutTBUpdate.dtd to Transifex"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17729

   "Changelog after update is empty if JS is disabled" (unresolved)
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/17917

We also reviewed recent updater changes made by Mozilla to ensure that 
our updater will not be affected.


* Tor Browser and Torbutton:

We helped with the 5.0.5, 5.0.6, and 5.5a5 Tor Browser releases.

We started to look at changes to the on-disk layout of the Tor Browser 
app on Mac OS to meet Apple's code signing requirements (work in progress):
   "Support OS X Gatekeeper"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/6540

   "Tor Browser on OS X should not store data into the
    application bundle"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13252

We fixed some small but annoying Tor Browser issues:
   "8-month-old Tor Browser offers to 'Reset Tor Browser'"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16441

   "console.error on new Tor Browser window"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16863

We triaged various tickets.

We reviewed many patches created by other developers, including for 
tickets #12516, 15564, 15578, 17009, 17108, 17565, 17661, 17759, 17747, 
and 17792.


* Tor Launcher:

Inspired by the UX research that is being done at Berkeley, we worked on 
a series of small changes to the initial setup wizard. Details may be 
found in this ticket:
   "settings not saved after backing out of setup wizard"
   https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11773
Our proposed changes go well beyond the title of the ticket; comments 
are encouraged.


* Miscellaneous Activities:
    We participated in the weekly Tor Browser and app team meetings
    on IRC, and in various design discussions on IRC as well as on
    the mailing lists.


* Planned for January:
  - Revise the on-disk layout of the Tor Browser app on Mac OS
    to meet Apple's code signing requirements (see #13252).

  - Assist with the Tor Browser 5.0.x maintenance releases as needed.

  - Help finish Tor Browser 5.5, including the hardened package.

  - Work with UX researchers to ensure that their Tor Launcher
    research is productive (see the discussions on the new UX
    mailing list).

  - Finish our simple but valuable improvements to the Tor Launcher
     initial configuration wizard.

  - Work on other Tor Browser, Tor Launcher, and Torbutton usability
    issues as time permits.

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