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n8fr8, 06/29/2015 03:25 pm
Orfox vs Tor Browser vs Firefox for Android FAQ¶
How is Orfox different than Tor Browser for desktop?
Orfox is built from the same source code as Tor Browser (which is built upon Firefox), but with a few minor modifications to the privacy enhancing features to make them compatible with Android.
- The Orfox code repository is at https://github.com/guardianproject/tor-browser and the Tor Browser repository is here: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor-browser.git/
- Orfox is built from the Tor Browser repo based on ESR38 (https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/5146 https://dev.guardianproject.info/news/221) and has only two modified patches that were not relevant or necessary for Android
- Orfox includes a "Request Mobile Site" option that allows you to change the user-agent from the standard Tor Browser agent to a modified Android specific one: "Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0". (https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/5404). This is useful for being able to see the mobile version of a website, but does reduce the amount your browser blends in with other browsers.
How is Orfox different than Firefox for Android?
Beyond the core Tor Browser components, Orfox also must ensure all Android-specific code is properly routed through the Tor proxy, and otherwise hardened to protect against data and privacy leaks.
- Orfox adds patches at the Android Java code layer to enable proxying of all Java network HTTP communications through the local Orbot HTTP proxy (HTTP localhost:8118 for now, but moving to SOCKS). (https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/5235 https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/5317)
- Orfox removes the Android permissions for Contacts, Camera, Microphone, Location and NFC (https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/3822) since the capability of using these features are not in line with the spirit of Tor Browser
- Orfox removes features like WebRTC and support for interaction with Chromecasts or Roku devices, since this type of communication is not compatibility with proxying communication through a TCP-based network like Tor (https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/5358 https://dev.guardianproject.info/issues/5357)