torbrowser-launcher as distribution platform for all TPO bundles?

[HulaHoopWhonix]

torbrowser-launcher is an excellent way to get and update the TBB. Given that TorBirdy and TIMB (Tor Instant Messaging Bundle) probably have the same distribution restrictions as TBB, I was thinking that torbrowser-launcher can be extended to handle fetching and maintenance of those packages as well?

That would depend on how much effort is needed of course.

The point of this proposal is to turn torbrowser-launcher into a common platform, allowing easy and secure distribution of all TPO Tor-centric software suites for privacy oriented OSs such as TAILS, Whonix and any other distro that has it packaged in its repos.

[micahflee]

I like this idea. It doesn't seem like TorBirdy needs this, since Thunderbird has its own way of updating add-ons. However, I'd love to have something really similar to torbrowser-launcher for Tor Messenger, once it's stable and supports auto-updates, and has a release channel.

I suspect it make be simpler and make more sense to just fork torbrowser-launcher to make, e.g. tormessenger-launcher in the future, though. They might support separate mirrors, and the settings GUI should perhaps look different.

I'll keep this open though for discussion.

[adrelanos]

Forking torbrowser-launcher to tormessenger-launcher will probably fail. As in not being very useful. Debian has a policy against code duplication. So a fork of torbrowser-launcher would not be allowed to enter official Debian repositories as it would duplicate most code of torbrowser-launcher. @intrigeri might confirm this.

Sukhbir (@azadi) is aware of this issue. Talked to him at the 2015 dev meeting. He agrees for tormessenger to use a similar download folder layout as TBB. And supports this use case of keeping torlauncher in this regard similar to TBB so downloaders such as torbrowser-launcher and tb-updater can be turned into more general TPO software downloaders.

[adrelanos]

Sukhbir (@azadi), will there be TorBirdy bundles? (I hope not...)

[azadi]

Hi,

It's unlikely at this stage that we will have TorBirdy bundles. We had them in the past but with the patches for the two leaks merged upstream, I feel that there is little purpose in having a bundle.

As far as the directory structure is concerned, we are currently working on porting the secure updater to Tor Messenger, which as a side effect ensures that we will have the same directory structure. (In fact, we started by unifying the directory structure to make sure the patches apply seamlessly.)

[itstalmeez]

Hello it's Talmeez Fuaad here. Extending torbrowser-launcher to manage TorBirdy and TIMB distribution is an interesting idea. The feasibility will depend on the required effort. This proposal aims to create a common platform for distributing Tor-centric software, enhancing accessibility and security for privacy-focused OSs like TAILS and Whonix. Let's discuss this on the GitHub repository to explore its potential and gather community input.

[adrelanos]

TorBirdy and TIMB no longer exists. There are currently no other TPO bundels other than TBB.

Maybe it could support downloading Mullvad Browser (MB).

Whonix:

• Qubes-Whonix / Whonix support #239