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Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Tor GUI `SelekTOR` Sees New Major Release

SelekTOR, an open source Java-based GUI front-end for Tor, was updated to version 3.12 (now 3.12e) recently and it includes new advanced options as well as a new Tor Monitor panel that shows the Tor client startup info and its current status.

For those not familiar with SelekTOR, here's a quick list of features:

automatically sets up your web browser to use Tor, without any addons (supports Google Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Palemoon, Iceweasel and Firefox);
can be used in two modes: Proxy all Traffic or Proxy by Pattern (with the latter, Tor will only be used for websites matching a pattern you can set in the SelekTOR settings);
allows you to quickly select the Tor exit nodes by country (useful to access websites which aren't available in your country, such as Netflix, Hulu, CBS, ABC, Pandora, British TV, HBO Go and so on);
Nodes are filtered to ensure that they support HTTP on port 80, and thus ensuring greater reliability when used with web browsers;
Whois and Atlas Node details (pretty graphs) available with a single mouse click;
more.

If you haven't tried SelekTOR yet, I suggest reading our initial SelekTOR article which includes more information, instructions for how to install SelekTOR and Tor in Ubuntu or Linux Mint (and optionally, using the latest Tor from its official repository), as well as how to use Tor and SelekTOR with Privoxy, useful for apps that don't support SOCKS5.

The latest SelekTOR V3.12 (V3.12e) ships with a new Preferences layout and quite a few new advanced options, such as an option to toggle Safe Socks on/off, useful for applications that use unsafe variations of the socks protocol - for instance, without disabling Safe Socks, Spotify doesn't work with Tor as a SOCKS5 proxy.

Another new option, called "Use 2 hop circuits", can be used for improved latency however, because this option reduces your anonymity, it is only active in Proxy by Pattern mode so if you switch to Proxy All Traffic mode, Tor will use 3 hop circuits.

Other new advanced options available in the latest SelekTOR include:

set the Tor logging level (Debug, Info or Notice;;
re-implemented the default HTTP proxy (any traffic not routed through Tor will be redirected through this HTTP proxy);
avoid disk writes (when enabled, Tor tries to disk less frequently);
optional startup arguments which can be passed to Tor.

Another new feature added recently to SeleKTOR is a Tor Monitor panel, which shows the Tor client startup info and its current status:

It's also worth mentioning that SelekTOR is now available for Windows, but it's not free and a license costs $14.95 plus tax. The Linux version remains free and open source software.

Download SelekTOR

Ubuntu / Linux Mint and derivatives: check out our initial SelekTOR article for installation instructions (and more).

Unity Privacy Indicator 0.4 Released With New Privacy Settings

Privacy Indicator was updated recently with new privacy settings, such as enabling / disabling the Ubuntu GeoIP service or storing HUD usage data, clear Alt-F2 history and more.

For those not familiar with Privacy Indicator, this is an Ubuntu AppIndicator especially created for Unity, which allows you to control various privacy aspects.

Until this release, the indicator could be used to enable / disable Dash online search results and Zeitgeist logging (and also clear the Zeitgeist log), clear recently used files (which show up in the Nautilus or Nemo "Recent" sidebar item for instance) and to show or hide your real name on the Unity panel.

The latest Privacy Indicator 0.4 adds quite a few new settings, such as:

Show desktop icons
Use default wallpaper
Use Ubuntu GeoIP service
Store HUD usage data
Clear Alt-F2 history
Clear thumbnail cache
Clear libdvdcss key cache
Clear GVFS metadata

And of course, there are also various bug fixes - for instance, the AppIndicator icon isn't pixelated any more with the latest 0.4 release.

Note that Privacy Indicator was created with the Ubuntu / Unity defaults in mind so the new options to toggle displaying icons on the desktop or to restore the default wallpaper don't work with Nemo built with Unity patches from the failsdownloads Nemo PPA (however, clearing the recently used files affects both Nemo and Nautilus).

Most of the settings provided by Privacy Indicator are already available either via Unity Control Center > Security & Privacy (for enabling / disabling online search results or Zeitgeist logging) or Dconf-editor, but Privacy Indicator offers quick access to all these settings in one place, which can be useful in various situations, for example if you often need to disable Zeitgeist, clear recently used files, etc.

Install Privacy Indicator in Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10

To install Privacy Indicator in Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10, you can use its official PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:diesch/testing
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-privacy

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the Privacy Indicator deb (or source) from its homepage.

Report any bugs you may find @ Launchpad.

PPA Updates: Tor Browser Bundle 3.5, Sublime Text 3 Beta Build 3059

Quick update for Ubuntu / Linux Mint users: our PPAs were updated today with the latest Tor Browser Bundle 3.5 and Sublime Text 3 beta build 3059.

Tor Browser Bundle 3.5

For those not familiar with Tor Browser Bundle, this is a web browser based on Firefox ESR (Firefox with extended support), configured to protect users' privacy and anonymity by using Tor which comes bundled with it. The bundle also includes some Firefox extensions, like: TorButton, TorLauncher, NoScript and HTTPS-Everywhere.

For more information, see our initial article: Tor Browser Bundle Ubuntu PPA.

Tor Browser Bundle 3.5 is a major release and comes with the latest Firefox 24.2 ESR (the previous stable Tor Browser Bundle version was using Firefox 17 ESR), updated extensions and Tor as well as other changes and bug fixes.

With this release, a configuration window is displayed the first time your run Tor Browser Bundle, which allows you to select how to connect to the Tor network:

Also, in the previous releases, launching Tor Browser would also launch Vidalia, resulting in an extra window that you'd had to close to quit Tor Browser Bundle. That's no longer the case with the latest Tor Browser Bundle 3.5 because Vidalia has been replaced with a new Tor Launcher Firefox Addon.

Changes in Tor Browser Bundle 3.5 (compared to the previous stable release):

Update Firefox to 24.2.0esr;
Update Tor to 0.2.4.19;
Update Torbutton to 1.6.5.2;
Update NoScript to 2.6.8.7;
Update HTTPS-Everywhere to 3.4.4tbb (special TBB tag) - Tag includes a patch to handle enabling/disabling Mixed Content Blocking;
Remove Vidalia; Use the new TorLauncher Firefox Addon instead;
Disable health report service;
Disable prompting about health report and Mozilla Sync;
Disable HTTPS-Everywhere first-run tooltips;
Disable Mixed Content Blocker pending backport of Mozilla Bug 878890;
Support running Tor Launcher from InstantBird;
Support browser directory location API changes in Firefox 24;
Clear FF24 Private Browsing Mode data during New Identity;
Update cache isolation for FF24 API changes;
Properly clear crypto tokens during New Identity on FF24;
Support changes to Private Browsing Mode and plugin APIs in FF24;
Linux: use LD_LIBRARY_PATH (fixes launch issues on old Linux distros);
Linux: fix architecture check to work from outside TBB's directory;
Linux: remove libz and firefox-bin, and strip unstripped binaries;
Linux: disable Firefox updater during compile time;
Support multiple Tor socks ports for about:tor status check;
Fix: Tor Launcher hang on TBB exit;
Fix: Adblock Plus interferes w/Tor Launcher dialog;
Fix: make flash objects really be click-to-play if flash is enabled;
Fix: remove polipo and privoxy from the banned ports list;
Fix a potential memory leak in the Image Cache isolation;
Fix a potential crash if OS theme information is ever absent.
More.

The complete changelog for Tor Browse Bundle can be found HERE.

To install Tor Browser Bundle in Ubuntu / Linux Mint, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/tor-browser
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tor-browser

Important reminder: any TorBrowser changes you make (bookmarks, addons you install, etc.) are deleted on upgrade due to the way TorBrowser works, but this will change with a future update. Also, because there are separate packages on Tor Browser Bundle's website for the supported languages, the package in our PPA can only support one language (English).

Sublime Text 3 beta build 3059

Sublime Text is a popular text editor somewhat similar to TextMate, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

After almost 6 months, there's finally a new Sublime Text 3 beta build available: 3059. The latest beta build can be evaluated for an unlimited period of time and it includes the following changes:

Added tab scrolling, controlled by the enable_tab_scrolling setting;
Added image preview when opening images;
Encoding and line endings can be displayed in the status bar with the show_encoding and show_line_endings settings;
Added settings caret_extra_top, caret_extra_bottom and caret_extra_width to control the caret size;
Added index_exclude_patterns setting to control which files get indexed;
Automatically closing windows when the last tab is dragged out;
Changed tab close behavior: the neighboring tab is now always selected;
When the last file is closed, a new transient file is created automatically;
Ctrl+Tab ordering is stored in the session;
Added minimap_scroll_to_clicked_text setting;
Improved error messages when unable to save files;
Auto complete now works as expected in macros;
Minor improvements to Python syntax highlighting;
Vintage: A block caret is now used;
Vintage: Improved behavior of visual line mode with word wrapped lines;
Find in Files will no longer block when FIFOs are encountered;
Linux: Added menu hiding;
Linux: Fixed incorrect handling of double clicks in the Find panel;
Linux: Fixed incorrect underscore display in some menus;
API: Window.open_file now accepts an optional group parameter;
API: Plugins may now call Settings.clear_on_change() within a callback from Settings.add_on_change();
API: Calling Settings.add_on_change() from within a settings change callback won't cause the added callback to be run;

Ubuntu / Linux Mint users who want automated updates for the latest Sublime Text 3 beta builds can install the application by using the failsdownloads Sublime Text 3 PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/sublime-text-3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text-installer

For more information, see our initial article: Sublime Text 3 Ubuntu PPA. If you want to use Sublime Text 2 instead of 3 (which uses Python 2), there's a PPA for it too.

Remember, you can see the latest failsdownloads PPA updates @ http://ppa.failsdownloads.blogspot.com/

Tor Browser Bundle Ubuntu PPA

Tor Browser Bundle is a web browser based on Firefox ESR (Firefox with extended support), configured to protect users' privacy and anonymity by using Tor and Vidalia, tools that come bundled with it. The bundle also includes 4 Firefox extensions: TorButton, TorLauncher, NoScript and HTTPS-Everywhere.

When launching TorBrowser, it automatically starts the bundled Tor, anonymizing the origin of your traffic and encrypting everything inside the Tor network. Because the traffic between the Tor network and its final destination is not encrypted, Tor Browser ships with HTTPS-Everywhere, an extension produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.

Once you close TorBrowser, the list of visited websites and the cookies are deleted.

Tor Browser Bundle is easy to run on Ubuntu / Linux, but to make it integrate with the menu / Dash and for easier updates (since you must manually download and install newer versions), I've created an Ubuntu PPA so you can easily install and stay up to date with the latest Tor Browser Bundle.

The Ubuntu package uses the tor-browser-en AUR script, based on work by Alessio Sergi, Benjamin Drung and Max Roder (many thanks!). That's because Tor Browser Bundle runs from a single folder where it creates temporary files, etc., and with the script I mentioned, Tor Browser is automatically installed (or updated) to your home folder the first time you launch it.

But that's not something you need to worry about, as everything is done in the background so all you have to do is add the PPA, install Tor Browser Bundle and start the browser from the menu / dash, like with any other application.

Important notes:

because there are separate packages for the supported languages, the Ubuntu PPA packages only support English;
any TorBrowser changes you make (bookmarks, addons you install, etc.) are deleted on upgrade, unfortunately there's no way around this due to the way TorBrowser works.

Install Tor Browser Bundle in Ubuntu or Linux Mint via PPA

To add the failsdownloads Tor Browser Bundle PPA and install the application in Ubuntu / Linux Mint and derivatives, use the following commands in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/tor-browser
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tor-browser

Removing Tor Browser Bundle

Removing Tor Browser Bundle requires, besides removing the installed package, to also remove the ~/.tor-browser-en folder - that's where the package is installed after you run it from the menu / Dash for the first time. So if you want to remove Tor Browser Bundle, close it and use the following commands:

sudo apt-get remove tor-browser
rm -r ~/.tor-browser-en

Tribler BitTorrent Client To Become Anonymous, Version 6.3.1 Released

A year after the previous release, a new Tribler version was released recently and it includes new features, bug fixes as well as work towards anonymous streaming (using a built-in Tor-like network).

For those not familiar with Tribler, this is an open source, decentralized peer-to-peer client based on the BitTorrent protocol, supported by EU and Dutch research funding. The application includes features such as wiki-style channels, video-on-demand (watch videos while you download them) and more and is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

Like other BitTorrent clients, Tribler features a search box you can use to find content however, the search results come directly from other peers, without using a central server and this makes it immune to government anti-piracy attacks (the application will continue to work if the torrent trackers are pulled offline), claims an article from dailymail.co.uk.

Anonymous BitTorrent

The Tribler team wants their application to use truly anonymous streaming with the help of a built-in Tor-like network which routes all data through a series of peers - "Tribler users then become their own Tor network helping each other to hide their IP-addresses through three encrypted proxies", notes TorrentFreak.

"Adding three layers of proxies gives you more privacy. Three layers of protection make it difficult to trace you. Proxies no longer need to be fully trusted. A single bad proxy can not see exactly what is going on.

The first proxy layer encrypts the data for you and each next proxy adds another layer of encryption. You are the only one who can decrypt these three layers correctly. Tribler uses three proxy layers to make sure bad proxies that are spying on people can do little damage."

- Tribler Towards Anonymity

Automatic anonymous 50MByte test download using new Tor-like protocol / Tribler 6.3.1

Tribler doesn't anonymize streaming yet (except the 50mb test download included in this release). The plan is to achieve anonymous streaming with version 6.4 and anonymous seeding starting with version 6.5. Check out the Tribler roadmap and the "towards anonymity" page for details.

Tribler 6.3.1

The latest Tribler 6.3.1 includes various bits which should eventually lead to anonymous streaming in a future release:

Tor-like anonymous tunnel building, based on UDP;
Support for Cell,Create,Extend, and Ping Tor protocol messages;
Diffie-Hellman session key exchange;
Real-time crawler for bandwidth performance (inspired by metrics.torproject.org);
decentralized directory service for Tor-like routers;
automatic anonymous 50MByte test download using new Tor-like protocol;
no general anonymous downloads yet, trial-only.

Besides this, the latest Tribler 6.3.1 includes the following changes:

A year of bug fixing, polishing and performance tweaking;
thumbnail navigation:
- single-click streaming from main screen;
- channels can now optionally be browsed by thumbnails;
- Youtube-like GUI composed of user-generated images;
- Prepares the way for remote control navigation & operation.
complete rewrite of the elastic database engine (the dispersy overlay):
- use of Twisted frameworks instead of our custom event-handlers;
- less reliance on master bootstrap servers (new discovery community);
- improvements in NAT puncturing efficiency;
- faster data synchronization between Tribler peers.

Install Tribler in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

The Tribler downloads page (see below) offers Ubuntu deb downloads however, to get automatic updates, I recommend using the failsdownloads Tribler PPA. To add the PPA and install Tribler in Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10 / Linux Mint 17 and derivatives, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/tribler
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tribler

Tribler is also available in the official Ubuntu (14.04+) repositories, but it's an older version.

Download Tribler

Download Tribler - binaries available for Ubuntu, Windows and Mac OS X (source files are also available)

Arch Linux users can install Tribler via AUR.

How To Disable Amazon / Shopping Suggestions And Other Unity Scopes In Ubuntu 14.04 Or 13.10

In Ubuntu 13.04, if you want to get online search results in Dash without shopping suggestions, you can simply remove the Unity Shopping lens. In Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) and 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) you can't remove the Shopping lens but there is another way to achieve the same thing and it seems this isn't obvious because I've seen quite a few users complaining about it. So here's how to disable the shopping scopes or any scope for that matter, in Ubuntu 13.10 or 14.04, without disabling all the online search results.

Update: this article was initially written for Ubuntu 13.10 but everything here was tested and it works with Ubuntu 14.04 too.

Unity Dash with shopping suggestion

First of all, don't try to remove the Unity Shopping Lens in Ubuntu 13.10 or 14.04 because it won't work. Here's what you'll get if you try that:

$ sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'unity-scope-home' instead of 'unity-lens-shopping'
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

If you remove unity-scope-home, which was selected instead of unity-lens-shopping, you won't get any results in Dash, not even for installed applications.

You can't remove the Unity Shopping Lens in Ubuntu 14.04 or 13.10 because there's no Shopping lens. Ubuntu 13.10 (and 14.04) comes with a feature called Unity Smart Scopes (or "100 scopes") which uses a huge list of scopes to display results in Dash and among these, there are some used for shopping. So if you don't want shopping suggestions in Dash, you must disable these shopping scopes (see below).

Unity Dash without shopping suggestions

How to disable Unity Dash plugins (scopes) in Ubuntu 14.04 or 13.10

To disable a Dash plugin (scope) in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander or 14.04 Trusty Tahr, open Dash, go to the Applications lens (either do it manually using your mouse or use the Super + A keyboard shortcut), click "Filter results" on the right and under "Type", select "Dash plugins". All the Dash search plugins (scopes) should be listed, like in the screenshot below:

Dash plugins (scopes)

To disable a plugin, click on it and then click the "Disable" button:

Later on you can enable them back in the same way.

Disable the Amazon / shopping suggestions Unity Dash scopes

If you don't want shopping suggestions in Dash, disable the following scopes (by using the instructions above): Amazon, Ebay, Music Store, Popular Tracks Online, Skimlinks, Ubuntu One Music Search and Ubuntu Shop.

To disable all these shopping Dash plugins/scopes from the command line, use the following command:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses disabled-scopes "['more_suggestions-amazon.scope', 'more_suggestions-u1ms.scope', 'more_suggestions-populartracks.scope', 'music-musicstore.scope', 'more_suggestions-ebay.scope', 'more_suggestions-ubuntushop.scope', 'more_suggestions-skimlinks.scope']"

inspired by MarcosBox

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