Hi all!
We are pleased to accounce that Tor Browser 6.5 is ready for testing. Bundles can be found on:
https://people.torproject.org/~gk/builds/6.5-build3/
This is a major release and the first one in the 6.5 series. First of all it fixes the usual critical bugs in Firefox by updating to ESR 45.7.0. It contains version updates to other bundle components as well: Tor to 0.2.9.8, OpenSSL to 1.0.2j, HTTPS-Everywhere to 5.2.9, and NoScript to 2.9.5.3.
Besides those updates Tor Browser 6.5 ships with a lot of the improvements we have been working on in the past couple of months.
On the security side we always block remote JAR files now and remove the support for SHA-1 HPKP pins. Additionally we backported a patch to mark JIT pages as non-writable and backported other crash fixes that could disrupt a Tor Browser session quite reliably.
With respect to user tracking and fingerprinting we now isolate SharedWorker script requests to the first party domain. We improved our timer resolution spoofing and reduced the timing precision for AudioContext, HTMLMediaElement, and Mediastream elements. We stopped user fingerprinting via internal resource:// URLs, and for Windows users we fixed a regression introduced in Tor Browser 6.0 which could leak the local timezone if JavaScript were enabled.
A great deal of our time was spent on improving the usability of Tor Browser. We redesigned the security slider and improved its labels. We moved a lot of Torbutton's privacy settings directly into the respective Firefox menu making it cleaner and more straightforward to use. Finally, we moved as many Torbutton features as possible into Firefox to make it easier for upstreaming them. This allowed us to resolve a couple of window resizing bugs that piled on over the course of the past years.
The features menationed above were only some of the highlights in Tor Browser 6.5. The full changelog since 6.0.8 is:
Tor Browser 6.5 -- January 24 2017 * All Platforms * Update Firefox to 45.7.0esr * Tor to 0.2.9.8 * OpenSSL to 1.0.2j * Update Torbutton to 1.9.6.12 * Bug 16622: Timezone spoofing moved to tor-browser.git * Bug 17334: Move referrer spoofing for .onion domains into tor-browser.git * Bug 8725: Block addon resource and url fingerprinting with nsIContentPolicy * Bug 20701: Allow the directory listing stylesheet in the content policy * Bug 19837: Whitelist internal URLs that Firefox requires for media * Bug 19206: Avoid SOCKS auth and NEWNYM collisions when sharing a tor client * Bug 19273: Improve external app launch handling and associated warnings * Bug 15852: Remove/synchronize Torbutton SOCKS pref logic * Bug 19733: GETINFO response parser doesn't handle AF_UNIX entries + IPv6 * Bug 17767: Make "JavaScript disabled" more visible in Security Slider * Bug 20556: Use pt-BR strings from now on * Bug 20614: Add links to Tor Browser User Manual * Bug 20414: Fix non-rendering arrow on OS X * Bug 20728: Fix bad preferences.xul dimensions * Bug 19898: Use DuckDuckGo on about:tor * Bug 21091: Hide the update check menu entry when running under the sandbox * Bug 19459: Move resizing code to tor-browser.git * Bug 20264: Change security slider to 3 options * Bug 20347: Enhance security slider's custom mode * Bug 20123: Disable remote jar on all security levels * Bug 20244: Move privacy checkboxes to about:preferences#privacy * Bug 17546: Add tooltips to explain our privacy checkboxes * Bug 17904: Allow security settings dialog to resize * Bug 18093: Remove 'Restore Defaults' button * Bug 20373: Prevent redundant dialogs opening * Bug 20318: Remove helpdesk link from about:tor * Bug 21243: Add links for pt, es, and fr Tor Browser manuals * Bug 20753: Remove obsolete StartPage locale strings * Bug 21131: Remove 2016 donation banner * Bug 18980: Remove obsolete toolbar button code * Bug 18238: Remove unused Torbutton code and strings * Bug 20388+20399+20394: Code clean-up * Translation updates * Update Tor Launcher to 0.2.10.3 * Bug 19568: Set CurProcD for Thunderbird/Instantbird * Bug 19432: Remove special handling for Instantbird/Thunderbird * Translation updates * Update HTTPS-Everywhere to 5.2.9 * Update NoScript to 2.9.5.3 * Bug 16622: Spoof timezone with Firefox patch * Bug 17334: Spoof referrer when leaving a .onion domain * Bug 19273: Write C++ patch for external app launch handling * Bug 19459: Size new windows to 1000x1000 or nearest 200x100 (Firefox patch) * Bug 12523: Mark JIT pages as non-writable * Bug 20123: Always block remote jar files * Bug 19193: Reduce timing precision for AudioContext, HTMLMediaElement, and MediaStream * Bug 19164: Remove support for SHA-1 HPKP pins * Bug 19186: KeyboardEvents are only rounding to 100ms * Bug 16998: Isolate preconnect requests to URL bar domain * Bug 19478: Prevent millisecond resolution leaks in File API * Bug 20471: Allow javascript: links from HTTPS first party pages * Bug 20244: Move privacy checkboxes to about:preferences#privacy * Bug 20707: Fix broken preferences tab in non-en-US alpha bundles * Bug 20709: Fix wrong update URL in alpha bundles * Bug 19481: Point the update URL to aus1.torproject.org * Bug 20556: Start using pt-BR instead of pt-PT for Portuguese * Bug 20442: Backport fix for local path disclosure after drag and drop * Bug 20160: Backport fix for broken MP3-playback * Bug 20043: Isolate SharedWorker script requests to first party * Bug 18923: Add script to run all Tor Browser regression tests * Bug 20651: DuckDuckGo does not work with JavaScript disabled * Bug 19336+19835: Enhance about:tbupdate page * Bug 20399+15852: Code clean-up * Windows * Bug 20981: On Windows, check TZ for timezone first * Bug 18175: Maximizing window and restarting leads to non-rounded window size * Bug 13437: Rounded inner window accidentally grows to non-rounded size * OS X * Bug 20590: Badly resized window due to security slider notification bar on OS X * Bug 20439: Make the build PIE on OSX * Linux * Bug 20691: Updater breaks if unix domain sockets are used * Bug 15953: Weird resizing dance on Tor Browser startup * Build system * All platforms * Bug 20927: Upgrade Go to 1.7.4 * Bug 20583: Make the downloads.json file reproducible * Bug 20133: Don't apply OpenSSL patch anymore * Bug 19528: Set MOZ_BUILD_DATE based on Firefox version * Bug 18291: Remove some uses of libfaketime * Bug 18845: Make zip and tar helpers generate reproducible archives * OS X * Bug 20258: Make OS X Tor archive reproducible again * Bug 20184: Make OS X builds reproducible (use clang for compiling tor) * Bug 19856: Make OS X builds reproducible (getting libfaketime back) * Bug 19410: Fix incremental updates by taking signatures into account * Bug 20210: In dmg2mar, extract old mar file to copy permissions to the new one
Georg