Deactivate tor for localhost and maybe local network
I've changed the title and this initial comment because the original suggestion is no longer the goal of this thread, since it wasn't considered as suitable. The new suggestion is to add the option to access localhost and maybe the local network too without going trough tor, since access to them could be impossible otherwise.
First of all, I hope I am in the right place and I'm sorry if I'm not. I'd suggest to add the possibility to use the tor browser without a connection to tor. The connection could be activated/deactivated by using a toggle or switch.
There are a few reason why somebody could want to use the tor browser but without being connected to tor:
- tor browser is an fantastic browser with fantastic privacy settings, even without tor being active. So there are people who'd like to use it just as a browser.
- as a developer I often have to access pages hosted on my own laptop or in the local network. With the restriction that tor has to be active accessing those pages is not possible if the network has no network connection and if it has I'm still limited by the internet speed instead of the more faster direct way that doesn't enter the internet at all. (not entering the internet at all is often even more secure than doing it trough tor)
- there are pages that restrict access trough tor. And if you really have to access them tor browser would still have an advantage over other browsers (point 1).
- the tor browser doesn't work independent, right now it needs tor to work. While it's understandable that the features of the tor network require the tor network the basic features of a browser don't and so they should be usable even without the tor network.
- there are people who use the tor browser without tor, but by editing config files and settings which can mess up the whole browser configs/settings, leaving them without the protection the tor browser (without tor) has. By making the option accessible trough a single toggle people wouldn't need to try strange, not official ways to reach this goal.
- For all the reasons above tor can't be the default browser for many people, since you need a second browser for these basic browser features, that don't work with tor.
I asked some people in your channel about this and why it's not implemented anymore, since it seems that it was. The answer was many people forgot to activate tor when they wanted to use the browser trough tor. While I can't really understand why the toggle was immediately removed because of that feature, instead of implementing some warning first, I collected some suggestions to prevent this forgetting to activate tor thing too. (Not every suggestion is compatible with every other one)
- A popup every time a new tab (or window, depends on the possibility do activate/deactivate for every tab, window or session) opens, that asks if you want to connect to tor
- the toggle being hidden, so that it needs to be activated in the settings before tor can be deactivated with it
- the toggle resetting to active for every new tab/window/session
- the toggle resetting to hidden for every new tab/window/session (if not prevented by another option you have to set)
I know that most of those problems are resolved by just installing another browser, however you gotta have installed and use different browsers for different things than, which can be really annoying and every time you use the not tor browser you not just lose the privacy advantages of tor, but also of the tor browser, like the browser fingerprint.
So, here's my suggestion, please make tor browser usable without tor and difficult changes of config files, ideally by just toggling a switch.