The anti-censorship team is looking for people to try Tor Browser packages built from an experimental branch of Snowflake that is supposed to make Snowflake more reliable. There are two versions; you can try either one or both of them. If you have feedback, tell us whether you are using the "kcp" or "quic" version.
https://people.torproject.org/~dcf/pt-bundle/tor-browser-snowflake-turbotunnel-kcp-9.5a5-20200223/ https://people.torproject.org/~dcf/pt-bundle/tor-browser-snowflake-turbotunnel-quic-9.5a5-20200223/ To enable Snowflake the first time you run the browser: * Click "Configure" * Click "Tor is censored in my country" * Click "Select a built-in bridge" * Select "snowflake" from the menu If the browser is already running: * Go to about:preferences#tor (open the Preferences menu then click Tor on the left side) * Look at the "Bridges" section * Click "Use a bridge" * Click "Select a built-in bridge" * Select "snowflake" from the menu What's different about these experimental packages? As you may know, Snowflake is already part of alpha Tor Browser. Snowflake works by routing your connection through temporary proxies before they reach a bridge, but until now there wasn't a way to switch to a new proxy when the one you are using stops working--the connection would just stop working. These packages solve the problem by putting a session protocol under the temporary Snowflake layer. (That's why there are two options. We are testing two session protocols: KCP and QUIC.) If you are curious about the background: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2020-February/000074.html https://bugs.torproject.org/33336 https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/9 These special packages are made not to auto-update until 2020-04-23. After that, they will update and become a normal Tor Browser alpha. What to expect. You should be able to use these browsers all day without the connection breaking. The speed of the Snowflake connection depends on the temporary proxy you get assigned. If you think you have a slow proxy, try this trick: go to about:preferences#tor, switch to obfs4 for 1 second, then switch back to snowflake. That will restart the pluggable transport and give you a chance at a different proxy. It takes 30 seconds to detect a failed proxy. So if your proxy dies, it will be at least 30 seconds before your connection starts working again. It may be even longer than that, if you happen to be assigned another bad proxy right away. You can see what's going on by watching the log file: linux: Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/pt_state/snowflake-client.log windows: Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor\pt_state\snowflake-client.log mac: Tor Browser.app/Contents/Resources/TorBrowser/Tor/pt_state/snowflake-client.log Here's a guide to reading the log file: Traffic Bytes (in|out): 0 | 972 Traffic Bytes (in|out): 52457 | 7270 If the number on the left stays at 0, the proxy isn't working. If it's nonzero, the proxy is working. WebRTC: No messages received for 30s -- closing stale connection redialing on same connection This means that your proxy died and the system is switching to a new one. It's possible to run multiple Tor Browsers at the same time, if you want to run one of these Snowflake browsers alongside your normal Tor Browser, or run the "kcp" and "quic" versions at the same time. I posted instructions to https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/anti-censorship-team/2020-February/000074.html but the short summary is you have to set a couple of environment variables: TOR_SOCKS_PORT=9250 TOR_CONTROL_PORT=9251 ./start-tor-browser.desktop -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
