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Hi Silivrenion and thanks for the input.

Silivrenion wrote:Your criticism on Portabletor, or questions about it, are strongly appreciated.

The only criticism about PortableTor that I have (well, had) was regarding the non-stealthy nature of the program, as the Tor Data Directory was written to the "Application Data" folder on the computer. I wrote this program for two main reasons: to address that issue, and that I'm pretty addicted to portabalising apps wherever I can.

Silivrenion wrote:I took a look at your software and how it works, and I like the idea of automatically minimizing / starting tor (something I was pondering on setting originally, but I figured the end-user would appreciate control of whether to connect to Tor, at their own discretion.)

Way I figure it - if they opened Torvox up, they plan to connect to Tor. I cant see any other real purpose to it, so I may as well do all the hard work for the end user.

Silivrenion wrote:Very interesting directory structure, by the way. Was this built for PortableApps interfacing? You mentioned that you found my structure confusing, and I was wondering how so.

Although the directory structure is in the style of the PortableApps Format by John Haller, it was not written with the idea of interfacing with the PortableApps Menu. Mainly because I don't like the PAM (PStart was the launcher I had in mind). However, I am trying to work on interoperability, so far to no avail.

Silivrenion wrote:You mentioned showing your Tor IP address during a connection class. As far as I am aware, this can't be done simply for the end user, as Tor will establish multiple connections at any one time, and switch through them with timeouts.

Yeah, I realised this when I actually started trying to write the feature. I think I just got wrapped up in writing the program, and forgot how Tor itself actually works haha.

Anyway yeah, thanks for response.

Interoperability will be a difficult part of the project, cause it seems that every application launcher has its own setup.

I was considering for a while making several builds per version - u3, PAM, etc. This may get confusing though, and won't exactly help the update process for the packages.

I like your launcher self-check. That's one unique thing your package has. I probably won't build something like that, because I'm using the default and full config files available with the main packages and its one of the main things your program differs with. Still, NSIS is a very strong language, and can do so much more than just installing! (I made software named IEClean, which deletes temp files and such on pre-XP machines via NSIS)

I used batch files and a batch-to-exe encoder to control program launching myself, because it was easy to specify the commandline options via batch.

Silivrenion wrote:I was considering for a while making several builds per version - u3, PAM, etc. This may get confusing though, and won't exactly help the update process for the packages.

I toyed with this idea, but it really isn't necessary, as a program can modify the "Working Directory" it thinks it is using.

I know pretty much how to do it, but, it isn't a stealth solution. I don't think that making a program work in one specific launcher, especilly when most of this community uses PStart, is worth losing the stealth factor the program has.

I'm a C++ programmer normally, but the number of lines of code to do the same thing as what you can do in NSIS in just one line - well - it would be pointless. NSIS is indeed a powerful language.

Version 1.3.1.2:

• Tor Config "AvoidDiskWrites" option used
• Included TorButton Firefox extension in "Other" folder
• Included Tor + Vidalia + Privoxy information in "Other" folder
• "Data" folder will be completely rewritten if it is not present
• Default Tor control port is now used
• Change to structure of sections in source
• Modifications to the file checking section
• Rewrite to application launch section to make it work in the PortableAppsMenu

I underlined what, in my opinion, is the most important change in this release. And yes, it is still stealth.

Download links:
MiHD: http://mihd.net/osglyb
SendSpace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/l3f7gx

Works flawless from out of PAM now...
Thx M@tty!

Version 1.3.1.4:

• Removed redundant default Vidalia appearance style
• Made the Tor Log portable with a relative file location

Download links:
MiHD: http://mihd.net/0ex4ta
SendSpace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/b9fw31

Version 1.3.2.0:

• Updated to Tor 0.1.2.17 and Vidalia 0.0.14
• Starts Privoxy Minimized rather than hidden
• Changed Tor Data Directory to "Data\Tor"
• Deletes stray Tor state file left in user's %AppData% folder
• Updated info in Readme file

Download link:
MiHD: http://mihd.net/g8xoqt

Good news! Please keep going - have you ever thought about a home for Torvox?

BR
z.

I have a web-site, I just don't really have the time to write any content for it. I will get round to it sometime, and it will have a couple of the currently unreleased portable applications I have witten.

This program, and all Tor Portable versions, are not completely stealth, because they leave a remnant called "state" in the AppData/tor folder. Torvox tries to take care of this by deleting the file on startup, but when you close down the program, it does not take care of this problem.

This is a bug with Tor itself, but it should be noted that until this bug is resolved, neither software package can be said to be truly stealthy.

So you are saying that when Tor is closed, it creates a State file?

Can someone please confirm this, as in all my tests I find no State file being created on closure.

And while I agree Torvox is not 100% stealthy, it is as stealth as OperaUSB. OperaUSB cleans its cache up after itself (but a file undelete could easily recover this), and in the database is classed as stealth.

Just wanted to inform you that the MiHD download link for Torvox isn't working. HiHD said their server is down. Have you considered MediaFire to host the file?

Update: The download server is working again.

Hello M@tty,

any plans on releasing a new version of Torvox including Vidalia v0.0.15 (which seems to be a major upgrade) and Tor ...18.

Would be great...

BR
zikarus

Btw. How about a version with Tor 0.2.0.9 alpha (or is this to far from usable yet?)

I was not aware therere was a new version of Vidalia out yet. I will of course integrate it into Torvox for the next release, but for now you can just put the Vidalia executable into the 'App' directory.

As for the Tor beta, not until it's release.

Hello once more,

it would be nice if you could inform us about the latest news concerning Torvox and/or the possible conjunction with the Portable Tor project.

Looking forward to an update btw - something in the pipeline for the latest Tor-release?

BR
zikarus