Re: [Tails-dev] Tor Browser branding in Tails?

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Author: anonym
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] Tor Browser branding in Tails?
02/12/13 09:53, intrigeri wrote:
> arkmd wrote (02 Dec 2013 01:36:23 GMT) :
>> intrigeri:
>>> how annoying do you think it is if some of the Tor Browser
>>> branding (mainly: window title bar, some text in "About Tor
>>> Browser") is applied in Tails 0.22? I guess we could change this by
>>> dropping the "Tor Browser's official .mozconfigs" patch. To be
>>> honest, I'm a bit reluctant to change this *now* for 0.22 (frozen,
>>> will be released in a bit more than a week), and I'm afraid we did
>>> not think of this earlier in this release cycle, but I would be
>>> happy to fix this for 0.23 if you think it's required.
>> Is it to avoid confusion?
>
> No, it's to have our browser codebase as close as possible to the
> regular Torbrowser's one. Each patch we drop has the potential to make
> our browser look somewhat different on the Internet.
>
>> Thats a valid point, but...
>
>> A big "Tor Browser" title bar would attract more attention of the
>> people standing around than it would help new Tails users.
>
>> Maybe stay with Iceweasel, or even change name and icons to Firefox,
>> would provide more discretion to Tails users.
>
> Personally, I believe the Windows Camouflage mode is our best bet when
> it comes to hiding one is using something weird. I guess we would take
> patches that s/Tor Browser/Firefox/ or something in camouflage mode,
> but I don't consider this as a valid line of reasoning as far as
> non-camouflage mode is concerned.


Given how widely used Firefox is among Windows systems this looks like a
good idea, especially since Iceweasel should be able to make a less
suspicious impersonation of Firefox than it currently does of Internet
Explorer. This thought did occur to me when developing this feature, but
it has a catch...

> If others think differently, I'm happy to read their thoughts and
> perhaps change my mind :)


My only objection is that this would make Tails potentially illegal for
us to distribute. Mozilla's artwork is non-free, as is the use of the
"Firefox" name in some sense [1], which are among the reasons for
Iceweasel existing in the first place.

[1] http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/

Cheers!