Alpha Bundles Available for Testing

Unlike the previous version (2.2.35-7.2), this alpha release seems to work well. I've just configured it and run the JonDonym test ...

http://ip-check.info

...with good results: 11x green and 5x ochre. Great!

- Not so great is that I couldn't use the last TBB because it was built with a newer GTK2 version than the TBB releases you have made over the past couple of months. I think such variations between releases are not ok. Maybe you can put your build environment on an ISO image that your co-conspirators can use when you take a break or go on holiday? The build process of an application that some people seriously depend upon really should be more standardized.

- The default settings in Firefox, Tor Button and NoScript are unnecessarily lax and some are outright dangerous. The selection of default Search Engines could also be improved. People have been complaining about this for some time and I'm wondering why nothing is changed release after release after release?

- When TBB starts up and there's a newer version available, Firefox opens an extra tab with information and a download link. This is good. But at the same time the locally configured home page is overwritten with the URL of the displayed page. And this is very, very bad! In fact, this is so bad that it reminds me of the worst excesses in the mid 1990s, when for a time anyone seemed to have access to one's browser configuration and bookmark files (Netscape, IE) ... completely unacceptable, especially in an application that is supposed to be secure and trustworthy. Since years my home page has been a 7 line piece of html that says: "home page". I like it that way because I don't want to go anywhere automatically when I start the web browser. And I certainly don't want some robot on the other side of the Atlantic to change my local browser configuration. It's stuff like this, that gets people speculating about what other remote control features there might be in TBB. Really, this has to go.

- This alpha version of Vidalia is still quite rough around the edges. I think, the yellow Post-It sticker saying ...

"Please wait a few seconds, a Tor enabled Firefox will start right away."

... shouldn't pop up somewhere in the middle of the screen. It makes the whole start up procedure look busy and confusing. It would be better if the notification appeared within the Vidala window itself.

- The network configuration in Vidalia has also been lacking for some time and it still is in this alpha version. The state of the tick box "My ISP blocks connections to the Tor network" is not stored correctly and keeps me guessing ... am I connected to the Tor network directly or through a bridge? There's no indicator for this. I think, when the box is visibly ticked and its state is stored, connections should be exclusively handled through bridges and if no bridge can be found then there should be no connection. This would give peace of mind to those who depend on Tor bridges.

- Another issue is the quality of the bridges. I have currently 10 bridge IPs stored in Vidalia. They've been there since months and I have no idea whether they're all working or if some of them are dead. A simple ping will not do to verify whether they are still acting as Tor bridges. Maybe a future version of Vidalia can monitor stored bridges and somehow indicate those that are no longer working? It would also be good if one could see which of the bridges is actually used for the connection.

- And lastly: since a couple of weeks I have been occasionally getting the error message ...

The proxy server is refusing connections
Firefox is configured to use a proxy server that is refusing connections.

... when starting up TBB, and I have no idea why. It just happened again a few minutes ago with the new alpha version. But it also happened with version 2.2.35-7 from February. Does anyone know what could be the reason for this?