Allow Letterboxing opt-in/out
Let's allow not advanced users to opt-in/out letterboxing without going wild in about:config.
Activity
Trac:
Parent Ticket: #32324 (moved)-
Hi all,
I've added a mockup, for this ticket. I wasn't sure the best way to categorize it if either in about:preferences#privacy or about:preferences#tor, but the design is the same. The 'Read more' can link to the blog post that introduces the Letterboxing (https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-90) or maybe to an actual documentation page?
Thoughts?
Trac:
Username: diogosergio 
Replying to pospeselr:
If we're down with this design I should be able to knock it out pretty quickly.
- nits?: Letterboxing helps reduce screen and window fingerprinting. It works by adding light or dark theme margins to the browser window.
- it doesn;t prevent FPing, it reduces it (or rather the entropy)
- added window, it's not just screen
- added the themed color upcoming change
- two distinct sentences
- learn more?: maybe https://support.torproject.org/tbb/maximized-torbrowser-window/
I feel the above link content could possibly be improved: "white" margins aside, e.g. recommendation that users stay at the opened size (the biggest bucket), but that if their threat model (https://2019.www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en) allows it, resize for usability (and maybe mix it up: try different sizes in different windows, on different days).
- nits?: Letterboxing helps reduce screen and window fingerprinting. It works by adding light or dark theme margins to the browser window.
Thanks, diogosergio for working on it.
I also agree that we should have it in the Security&Privacy section.
@steph, would you review this content before we move it to development?
Letterboxing helps to prevent fingerprinting screen dimensions; It works by adding smart margins to the browser window. [ ] Allow Letterboxing (recommended)
Replying to antonela:
@pospesler, do you think we should explore another option for enabling it?
This proposal as-is (pending final textual content) makes sense to me.
@tom, do you think this is something that would be potentially uplifted to mozilla-central?
Replying to pospeselr:
Replying to antonela:
@pospesler, do you think we should explore another option for enabling it?
This proposal as-is (pending final textual content) makes sense to me.
@tom, do you think this is something that would be potentially uplifted to mozilla-central?
I'm skeptical we could expose this on the preferences page. Especially without more work making it friendly and more understandable. But Arthur would be the person to ask, not me! :)
I don't think Mozilla would necessarily be opposed to having a patch for the about:preferences page, assuming the checkbox only appears when privacy.resistFingerprinting is enabled.
On the other hand, perhaps I'm missing some context -- is there a strong desire from users to disable letterboxing? It's really quite an important part of fingerprinting resistance.
Also -- the name "letterboxing" is probably not the best. ;)
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Replying to arthuredelstein:
I don't think Mozilla would necessarily be opposed to having a patch for the about:preferences page, assuming the checkbox only appears when privacy.resistFingerprinting is enabled.
On the other hand, perhaps I'm missing some context -- is there a strong desire from users to disable letterboxing? It's really quite an important part of fingerprinting resistance.
Also -- the name "letterboxing" is probably not the best. ;)
Yeah there was a fair bit of backlash and bugs filed when the letterboxing changes went live in 9.0. Some vocal users really want all of their screen real estate, despite how finger-printable it makes them while others think the margin is a bug.
We have ticket #32324 (moved) to improve our user-onboarding to better inform users about what/why letterboxing is and should be enabled. We also have Mozilla 1594455 ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1594455 ) to uplift some of our design changes to make the UX feel a bit more polished (a prototype of this is in the latest Tor Browser Alpha if you're curious)
I'm open to alternative less-scary names for letterboxing. :D
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One other thing to take into consideration here is new window issues. For some?/many? users, those using the bookmarks toolbar, even if they stick to original new window size (as they are constantly told to for OpSec and best practice), they are affected, by only a few pixels - see #27845 (moved) (upstream https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1418537 ) ; in other words, they are being penalized almost 100px in margin height by doing nothing wrong. Our setup/advise/patches seem hypocritical for lack of a better word
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Filed Mozilla 1601040: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1601040
mentioned in issue #32324 (moved)
