Unable to get TorBrowser 4.5.1 to use anything except local Tor instance
As the title says, I seem to be unable to configure TorBrowser 4.5.1 to use anything except the local Tor instance. On TorBrowser 4.0.x I configured it using the UI preferences (which have been accidentally removed see: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/15852 ) to use an HTTP proxy on another machine that in turn connected to a separate Tor instance.
But on 4.5.1 (and presumably 4.5.0) I can't find a way to get it to work the same way.
Mike Perry suggested in ticket 14630 here: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/14630#comment:10 :
For now, you need to either edit the Torbutton about:config prefs 'extensions.torbutton.socks_host' and 'extensions.torbutton.socks_port', or set the environment variables TOR_SOCKS_HOST and TOR_SOCKS_PORT before starting TBB.
but using about:config and changing those settings doesn't work for me. In fact I have tried changing all sorts of settings, including trying to set them the same as 4.0.x using the:
extensions.torbutton.custom.xxx
settings but every time it uses the local instance, although I can see it checking the settings by connecting to the remote proxy machine during startup.
I even tried changing the torlauncherport setting in the hope it would decide the local Tor instance wasn't running because it couldn't connect to it, and go ahead and use the other proxy settings, but when I do that it just hangs and I have to kill it. :-(
Trac:
Username: TBUser39