Hi everyone! Here is my status report for April 2024.

This month, I explored the automation possibilities I mentioned last month. I wrote a script [0] that automatically rebases a few branches on top of gecko-dev/esr115 [1], cherry-picks commits from our default+maintenance branches, and moves them to the appropriate position of the patchset. In this way, when Mozilla tags a new release, our new branches will be ready without us doing anything. I'm still testing that everything works as expected, so I'm running the script manually. But the following step would be to run it automatically and regularly. Also, we could modify it to send us a notification when a new Firefox tag is published.

I also wrote a script to automate release preparations [2], but it's still under review. This script will check for new releases of our dependencies and update our build configuration and changelogs automatically. We already had a script to create changelogs from linked GitLab issues, but we had to add updates manually. This, and a few other details, will be automated by the script, too.

Then, I addressed the various comments on the MR to improve error handling in the TorConnect module [3] I mentioned in my previous report.

In addition, I started working on Mullvad Browser's Windows installer [4] again. sajolida has prepared some wireframes on how to structure it, and I tried to check what's possible with NSIS.

I helped with the releases for this month. I rebased both the release and the alpha channel and backported some fixes from alpha to stable. I'm also continuing my efforts to keep a branch on top of Firefox's rapid release and to (slowly but steadily) address fingerprinting issues. And since the next Firefox ESR (128) is going to be nightly in a couple of weeks [5], I restarted my uplift effort [6] as well.

Finally, I made some quick fixes: a fallback mechanism to show the circuit display also when the bridge lines don't have a fingerprint (e.g., with conjure) [7], a patch for our Japanese localization that only partially worked on macOS [8], and more.

Best, Pier

[0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/pierov/lazy-scripts/-/blob/main/rebase-tool/re... [1] https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev/tree/esr115 [2] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/merge_req... [3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/merge_requests/... [4] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/mullvad-browser/-/issues/200 [5] https://whattrainisitnow.com/release/?version=128 [6] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40789#no... [7] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/merge_requests/... [8] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42535