The developers of the Tor project announced the launch of a new stable branch of the project, this being the new version "Tor 0.4.3.5" in which some significant changes were made.
Tor 0.4.3.5 is recognized as the first stable version of the 0.4.3 branch, that has developed in the last five months. The branch 0.4.3 will be accompanied by a regular maintenance cycle: posting updates it will be suspended 9 months or 3 months after the publication of the 0.4.4.x branch.
A long support cycle (LTS) is provided for the 0.3.5 branch, the updates of which will be released until February 1, 2022, while the support for versions 0.4.0.x and 0.2.9.x has been discontinued and support for version 0.4.1.x will end on May 20 and 0.4.2.x on September 15.
For those who are still unaware of the Tor project (The Onion Router). This is a project whose main objective is the development of a communications network distributed, low latency and overlaid over the internet in which the routing of the messages exchanged between users does not reveal their identity, that is, its IP address (anonymity at the network level) and that, in addition, it maintains the integrity and secrecy of the information that travels through it.
The system is designed with the flexibility necessary so that it can implement improvements, be deployed in the real world and can withstand different types of attack. However, it has weak points and cannot be considered a foolproof system.
What's new in Tor 0.4.3.5?
In this new version the change in dependencies is highlightedas it now requires higher system requirements for builds now Python 3 is required to run tests, while Python 2 is no longer supported due to end of support for this Python branch.
On the part of the changes, it stands out that the ability to compile without including retransmission code was implemented and the directory server cache. Disabling is done using the "–disable-module-relay" option when running the configuration script, which also disables the assembly of the "dirauth.
As well as the inclusion of additional functionality necessary to work hidden services based In the third version of the protocol with the OnionBalance balancer, which allows you to create scalable hidden services that run on multiple backends with your own Tor instances.
Also new commands have been added for manage credentials used to authorize hidden services: ONION_CLIENT_AUTH_ADD to add credentials, ONION_CLIENT_AUTH_REMOVE to remove credentials and ONION_CLIENT_AUTH_VIEW to display a list of credentials.
A new indicator has been added "ExtendedErrors" for SocksPort, which allows you to obtain more detailed error information.
In addition to the already supported proxy types (HTTP CONNECT, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5), the ability to connect through the HAProxy server is added. The forwarding is configured by means of the parameter «TCPProxy : »In torrc with the protocol indication as« haproxy »
Directory servers added support for locking the ed25519 relay keys using the approved routers file (previously only RSA keys could be locked).
And it also highlights some significantly redesigned features related to controller operation and configuration processing.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it about this new version, you can check the details in the following link.
How to get Tor 0.4.3.5?
In order to get this new version, just go to the official website of the project and in its download section we can obtain the source code for its compilation. You can get the source code from the following link
While for the special case of Arch Linux users we can obtain it from the AUR repository. Only at the moment the package has not been updated, you can monitor it from the following link and as soon as it is available you can perform the installation by typing the following command:
yay -S tor-git
As for packages that include a new Tor browser, they should be available in the next few weeks.