I2P Browser

Proposals for I2P
hammer
Posts: 15
Joined: 07 Apr 2018 08:24

I2P Browser

Post by hammer »

Well, as I think about mass adaptation and what can be done to help to increase use case / therefore adaptation of I2P, I am personally advocating I2P to be used as an anti-censorship tool for countries like Iran / China or other countries which block access of their citizens to information.

I think one can encourage news websites, etc. to host a copy of their content as eepsite on I2P network, if the process of simply using the network and browsing eepsites were much easier.

Right now, it requires to 1) Install the I2P router 2) setup a browser or other services to work with I2P and turn off everything when I2P is not needed anymore and change proxy settings once again.

What I suggest, is to have something like Tor Broswer ( please don't kill me ), an executable app which has the router code in it, plus a browser. Just for eepsites. Or maybe even a setting to punch exit-proxy address there to access clearnet via I2P - if they have an exit proxy address to use.

This browser, will be exteremly easy to install for an avarage Joe, to install in a Windows / Mac computer and just enters a url. Everything needed in one single installation, with no hassle. And when they close the app, the router shuts down.

Such a browser, will increase the potential of your avrage internet user to give I2P a shot. And on certain use cases like what I mentioned, people will activly go after it if they know it can solve their problem.
echelon
Posts: 261
Joined: 10 Feb 2018 13:36

Re: I2P Browser

Post by echelon »

Hi

sure, thats a idea brought on plan for 10 years now.
But a browser is a rather complex topic and takes years and years of knowledge and work to be done right, even the Tor browser still has lots of issues and is not perfect.
A browser itself is just not a safe product and the more tasks it should be able to do, the less secure it gets.

In short: I2p has no one with knowledge in the browser area and no dev free to do that job.
Simpliest for a user is to fetch the Tor browser and adopt it to be used with I2P.

Also we are working on getting I2P back in Tails, which is also a simple solution for the user.

echelon
hammer
Posts: 15
Joined: 07 Apr 2018 08:24

Re: I2P Browser

Post by hammer »

Echolon;

I undrestad. Now a hypothetical scenario:

Say if somebody could get some sort of financial backing and hire a dev team to do this. Fork the code for Tor Browser and change the engine. What is your cost estimate on this? Ball park figure? 20K Euro? 50K Euro?

Getting I2P in Tails would be a great start. :geek:
echelon
Posts: 261
Joined: 10 Feb 2018 13:36

Re: I2P Browser

Post by echelon »

Hi

as we do not hire and pay devs like companies do, thats just a idea.
As far as I know, Tor has at least 2 full time devs working on the browser alone, which is roughly 100k/year, depending on the dev.
For just adding I2P to the Tor browser is a quick edit in the proxy config, 5 min work for a user.

But to create a I2P browser and continue supporting it, a bit more work is needed, beside the dev working steady on it as long as we do want support it. As every change in upstream needs to be included.

I2P has some finances in kind of btc, but as we are no legal entity, we cannot hire any dev and pay them as a company can do.
Beside all this, devs are not falling from heaven ;-)

echelon
arowana
Posts: 29
Joined: 05 Sep 2018 20:55

Re: I2P Browser

Post by arowana »

Could a modified TOR-browser be served from the I2P project webpage?
echelon
Posts: 261
Joined: 10 Feb 2018 13:36

Re: I2P Browser

Post by echelon »

Hi!

IMHO that would be a issue with (c) and other implicit issues.
We can do a link to a tor browser and a howto modify it.

(btw, even tor Browser was very simple to hack until 7.x, despite some devs working fulltime on it for years now)

Browser are just insecure and unsafe part of software.

echelon
arowana
Posts: 29
Joined: 05 Sep 2018 20:55

Re: I2P Browser

Post by arowana »

Hi.
I'm not a coder, but I did find modify FF-Portable to work with I2P and added some useful links.

I'll see if I can learn some more on how to create a package similar to what TOR does. I2P and a browser configured to use it installed at once would be nice and user friendly.

That said, I'm no coder and no security expert. Just a random person on the interwebs. The package might sell your house and kill your cat.
Use at your own risk.

https://anonfile.com/k977zch1b0/I2PBrowser_7z

Just unzip and hit the FF-portable exe.
anonymousmaybe
Posts: 35
Joined: 06 Oct 2018 17:06

Re: I2P Browser

Post by anonymousmaybe »

in Whonix-I2P we have managed to make I2P works using Tor Browser. and instructions little bit for high users check here:

Full Discussion here:

https://forums.whonix.org/t/i2p-integration/4981

doing the instructions follow:

https://github.com/mutedstorm/Whonix-I2P
anonymousmaybe
Posts: 35
Joined: 06 Oct 2018 17:06

Re: I2P Browser

Post by anonymousmaybe »

image for I2P-Browser:

Image
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eyedeekay
Posts: 75
Joined: 21 Jul 2018 06:53

Re: I2P Browser

Post by eyedeekay »

Semi-hijacking to point out that I've opened this issue on my installer repo and intend to address shortly. https://github.com/eyedeekay/firefox.pr ... p/issues/9. It will continue to work with vanilla Firefox, but in a situation where an installed Tor Browser Bundle is detected, I will have it add Torbutton into the profile(coarse settings management to reduce fingerprintability) and then configure the launcher to use Tor Browser with the alternate profile instead. It's literally just swapping c:\path\to\firefox with c:\path\to\tbb conditionally in NSIS. Similar to the current approach, this will require the user to install a Tor Browser Bundle to use.
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