Announcing Tor Browser Bundle 3.0alpha1

by mikeperry | June 17, 2013

Update 2013/6/28: Describe workaround for the Windows d2d1.dll crash.

After almost 6 months of solid development, the Tor Project is proud to announce the first alpha in the 3.0 series of the Tor Browser Bundle!

The 3.0alpha1 bundles are downloadable from the Tor Package Archive.

Release Highlights

Here are the major highlights of the 3.0 series:

  1. Usability, usability, usability!
    We've attempted to solve several major usability issues in this series, including:
    1. No more Vidalia
      The Tor process management is handled by the new Tor Launcher Firefox extension. If you want the Vidalia map and other features, you can point an existing Vidalia binary at control port 9151 after Tor Browser has launched, and it should still work (and even allow you to reconfigure the TBB Tor as a bridge or a relay).
    2. Local homepage with search box

      The browser now uses a local about:tor homepage instead of https://check.torproject.org. A local verification against the Tor control port is still performed, to ensure Tor is working, and a link to https://check.torproject.org is provided from the about:tor homepage for manual verification as well.

    3. Guided Extraction for Windows

      For Windows users, an NSIS-based extractor now guides you through the TBB extraction and ensures the extracted bundle ends up on your Desktop, or in a known location chosen by you (but make sure you have permissions on that location). Hopefully this will mean no more losing track of the extracted bundle files!

  2. Email-sized bundles
    The bundles are all under the 25M gmail attachment size limit, so direct email and gettor attachments are once again possible.
  3. Improved build security and integrity verification
    We now use Gitian to build the bundles. The idea behind Gitian is to allow independent people to take our source code and produce exactly identical binaries on their own. We're not quite at the point where you always get a matching build, but the remaining differences are minor, and within a couple more releases we should have it fully reproducible. For now, we are posting all of the builds for comparison, and you can of course build and compare your own.

Known issues

Of course, being an alpha release (in fact, the first alpha release of this series), we expect these bundles to have some issues. Here's the major user-facing issues that we know about so far:

  1. Crash Issue: Windows Permissions
    On Windows, if you install the bundle to anywhere other than the Desktop, permissions issues can cause the bundles to crash at startup.
  2. Crash Issue: Windows Software Conflict(s)
    There appears to be an issue with direct2d rendering acceleration that affects some video cards, and has a crash report with a module d2d1.dll. The simplest workaround is to right click on 'Start Tor Browser' and select "Properties->Compatibility->Run in Windows XP Compatibility mode".
  3. Extraction: Delete or rename your old TBB directory first!
    These bundles are significantly different than the previous alphas or stable releases. You must not extract this bundle on top of a previous TBB directory, or multiple things will break. If you want to preserve your bookmarks and history, you can do so by copying only the places.sqlite file from your old bundle directory into the new one. The good news is that the elimination of Vidalia should make it much simpler for us to finally deploy an autoupdater, but please bear with us until we can finally complete that important usability work.
  4. Misc: Missing Translations
    Some of the translations strings for the Tor Launcher startup got munged by Transifex. In particular, the Farsi and the German builds both have missing button labels and strings.

If you experience any other issues, please let us know and/or file a bug!

Comments

Please note that the comment area below has been archived.

I get this error too,
for facebook.com with my Vidalia 0.2.21.
by the way TBB 3.0 doesN'T work at all at my WinXP with error message:
firefox.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point_vsprintf_s could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll

Yes, since yesterday my PC has hard time to connect to Tor relay. FB disable my browser Vadalia and redirected browser to its server of nowhere. How to avoid this?

June 17, 2013

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Access Restricted (Bad IP)
You are trying to access Facebook from an IP (Internet Protocol) address that's associated with a misconfigured ISP (Internet Service Provider) or abusive behavior. If you think this is an error, please tell us more.
Subject
Your email
Please explain why you think this is an error
Are you using a proxy?
Yes
No
I don't know
Thanks for taking the time to submit a report. While we don't reply to every report, we may contact you for more details as we investigate.

No, my ISP is from FIOS. Redirection to unable loading page pr server can't find the destination
koksap68@yahoo.com

Unsure,trying to restore systems to get to point where everything performed but FB still switching and blocking access by asking to Log in in every click made.It keeps dropping connection.
No but bridges

I am curious.Point of all these errors starting when one of my friends FB account was hacked and manipulated to posting libelous message on its web.She complained and asked if I experienced that. I shared information that FB has to know the root cause of the hacking.We talked about this in FB Chat. Note my friend is in Cambodia where internet and criticism is frowned upon and persecuted. She is worrying. Any idea,please.Thanks

June 17, 2013

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Since my TBB is on my USB flash drive, I'll wait for a TBB 3.0 that doesn't have Windows Permission issues if not installed on Desktop.

June 18, 2013

In reply to mikeperry

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No, it's not working from USB drive. There's a "no entry point _vsnprintf_s in msvcrt.dll module" error. I'm running on Win XP.

June 20, 2013

In reply to mikeperry

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When I use TBB in XP compatibility mode, when TBB is on desktop, TBB throws up the permission window. You may want to see if this is what others experience, too, considering your "fix" for the d2d1.dll error is to set TBB into compatibility mode . . .

June 18, 2013

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This error popup always appears when clicking the "Start Tor Browser" executable in Windows XP SP3:

firefox.exe - Entry Point Not Found : The procedure entry point _vsnprintf_s could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll.

TBB 2.3.25-8 works without problems.

June 18, 2013

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HI, how do you upgrade TBB, and keep the firefox setting/addons?
Is it good idea copy all old profile directory to new one?
or just use old profile directory (delete new profile, and move old to new TBB directory)?

How do you upgrade TBB?
thanks.

June 18, 2013

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Hi, why have you dumped vidalia. Will you dump vidalia on linux also?!?! Please don't do that. Vidalia is very useful. I recommend you make two(2) versions available so you can see which version is more popular. Personally I can not live without vidalia map! I need to know my paths! This is very important for the safety of my life.

Regards,
Jim!

June 18, 2013

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I hope that the tray icon is gone now in Windows. That was such a dead giveaway that you had Tor Browser running. Anyone could see it from pretty far away.

June 18, 2013

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Wouldn't starting and stopping TOR at the exact same time as starting torbrowser make timing exploits easier?

June 19, 2013

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Windows XP
firefox.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The Procedure entry point _vsprintf_s could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll

any sloution?

June 19, 2013

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NoScript is set to "allow scripts globally" as default.

This is an issue as the symbol with the exclamation mark looks like noscript is working.

Please change the default behaviour of noscript.

June 19, 2013

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Will not execute on Linux Mint 15 64-bit Cinnamon.

TheGhostInThe-PC ~/Desktop/TBB $ ./start-tor-browser

Launching Tor Browser Bundle for Linux in /home/alexander/Desktop/TBB
./start-tor-browser: 218: ./start-tor-browser: ./App/Firefox/firefox: not found
Tor Browser exited abnormally. Exit code: 127

June 20, 2013

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Why no Vidalia? I used to like seeing the path my data was taking across the hops.
How easy is it to "point an existing Vidalia binary at control port 9151 after Tor Browser has launched, and it should still work (and even allow you to reconfigure the TBB Tor as a bridge or a relay"

Thanks

(OS is linux, btw)

June 20, 2013

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As I wrote on Tor-talk (catslovetor), just ticking the XP compatibility box didn't fix this problem for me (d2d1.dll), all it did was allow the first window to load (but it froze as a blank window, so I had to kill the program).

For me, the way to fix this was to edit prefs.js directly. And XP compatibility mode isn't required.

June 21, 2013

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There is only one thing in Vidalia I see as important to me and I hope it could be included in the final version. The ability to start a New Identity. Every so often I will get a node that won't let me through for some reason. It keeps resetting or never getting to the site. I do a New Identity and boom, get right to it.

The other stuff is nice, but not essential IMO.

June 22, 2013

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I seem to have problems using Tor on both my iPad (Onion app) and MacPro. Must I ue ForeFox which Mac doesn't like?
Thanks!

June 23, 2013

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I installed the browser bundle to the desktop, but when I clicked on the Start Tor Bowser icon I immediately got the message: “the procedure entry point _vsnprintf_s could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll”.

Can anyone pls advise me what I have to do to sort this out and test 3.0?
My OS is XP.

Thanks

June 23, 2013

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I tried to point to the Vidalia binary at control port 9151, but it won't allow access. Is there something I'm missing? I'm not sure if there are other means of configuring like I did with the Vidalia gui.

Sorry, I'm still sort of new with Tor

June 24, 2013

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I cannot manage to install Tor 3.0 alpha, I have deleted previous folder of tor (v. 2.3 i think) run a CCleaner to remove all temp files and installed in a new folder. Installer i had to run as admin (i had permission problems). after the instalation is complete the "start tor browser.exe" won't do anything.

Running Windows 8 media center

June 26, 2013

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Crash on start (winxp sp3):
Entry point in procedure _vsnprintf_s is not found in msvcrt.dll

June 26, 2013

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Can anyone please clarify this, or confirm this:

TOR does NOT correctly mask your ID - an example is: if you use Fire Fox (or any other browser) to download a file from a file sharing site, using the FREE download option (it restricts you to one download at a time) You would think that by opening up TOR (showing a different IP) that you should be able then to download another file simply because it shows as being from a different IP. BUT IT DOES NOT - and this is sufficient cause to believe that a problem exists, and it is NOT as secure as you think. Even if the other party can only determine your "service provider IP, that is more then sufficient to easily trace your origin … anyone want to explain this better? Because even if you shut down and restart and attempt to start a new download from that site, it knows that a file was previously downloaded (complete or partial) and thus you will be prevented from further downloads until the time you are allowed to use the free service again. TPR ID FireFox ESR 17.0. 6

June 26, 2013

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Can anyone please clarify this, or confirm this:

TOR does NOT correctly mask your ID - an example is: if you use Fire Fox (or any other browser) to download a file from a file sharing site, using the FREE download option (it restricts you to one download at a time) You would think that by opening up TOR (showing a different IP) that you should be able then to download another file simply because it shows as being from a different IP. BUT IT DOES NOT - and this is sufficient cause to believe that a problem exists, and it is NOT as secure as you think. Even if the other party can only determine your "service provider IP, that is more then sufficient to easily trace your origin … anyone want to explain this better? Because even if you shut down and restart and attempt to start a new download from that site, it knows that a file was previously downloaded (complete or partial) and thus you will be prevented from further downloads until the time you are allowed to use the free service again. TPR ID FireFox ESR 17.0. 6

June 27, 2013

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When sites block certain IP addresses belonging to Tor exit nodes, I would use Vidalia's "Use a New Identity" to change the Tor circuit. Torbutton's "New Identity" is not a proper replacement because it also closes all tabs and resets state. Adding "New Circuit" to Torbutton would be useful now that Vidalia has been removed.

July 02, 2013

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after installing this version and running , I get this error : TorBrowser has stopped working
my os is Windows 7
how to solve this ?

July 03, 2013

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Greetings,
why do I keep getting this message:
Sorry, check is temporarily disabled until we can fix it.
?
And what does it mean?
Can I still browse anonymously?
Thx

July 04, 2013

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[in testing]

To run Vidalia:

- Unpack Tor Browser Alpha 2

- Copy vidalia application from last stable tor-browser-gnu-linux*.tar.gz [tor-browser_en-US/App]

- Run vidalia and it creates config file in /home/{USER}/.vidalia/vidalia.conf]

- Select where is tor application [/home/{USER}/tor-browser-linux64-3.0-alpha-2_en-US/App/tor]

- UNCHECK "Start the Tor software when Vidalia starts"

- In "Advanced" change port to 9151

- Change "Authentication" to "Cookie"

- Select where is yout torrc config [/home/{USER}/tor-browser-linux64-3.0-alpha-2_en-US/Data/Tor/torrc]

- Select where is your data directory [/home/{USER}/tor-browser-linux64-3.0-alpha-2_en-US/Data/Tor]

- Click OK

- Run start-to-browser

- And now you can "Start Tor" in Vidalia

RULES: run start-to-browser and then "Start Tor" in Vidalia

You are doing this on your own risk.

July 04, 2013

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Thanks for all your work.

Before you incorporate "no more Vidalia" into the stable TBB releases,
can you please explain this remark?

"If you want the Vidalia map and other features, you can point an existing Vidalia binary at control port 9151 after Tor Browser has launched, and it should still work (and even allow you to reconfigure the TBB Tor as a bridge or a relay)."

July 20, 2013

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Regarding Vidalia: could you provide a bit more detail on how to use Vidalia with the newer versions, before this change gets into the release editions of Tor Browser Bundle? I don't understand precisely what I am supposed to do from your comment above.

July 23, 2013

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I am have the most difficult time configuring thunderbird with tormail. I have followed I strict ions over and over. Windows 7. What am I missing ?

I have to have a USB.in tow. That's great !