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Comment by JohnTHaller | Hacker News Reader

Is it a fork? I thought it was a heavily customized version of Firefox ESR with specific settings and defaults using the channels OEM configs. Looking at the binaries, it's definitely not the standard build anymore.

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OEM configs have never been enough to implement everything they need in Tor Browser. They eventually started their uplift effort [1], to upstream all the patches and features they've added to it, so that they can possibly just use OEM configs.

Project Fusion is a superset of that effort.

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift

Could someone please explain what "OEM configs" means here?

Looking it up, I think the more accurate term is actually "partner repacks." [1] They're versions of Firefox shipped with different default settings and/or an extension included by default at install time, IIUC. Though reading this rather opaque page [2] it doesn't seem to explicitly preclude patches to the compiled code, though it seems like they would forbid that.

The key config file is distribution.ini. [3]

[1] https://hg.mozilla.org/build/partner-repacks/file

[2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/partnerships/distributio...

[3] https://brashear.me/blog/2017/12/07/how-to-deploy-firefox-wi...

I haven't looked into it in a while, but last I knew you had to have MoFo sign-off on a bunch of stuff, including code changes (i.e., you're only allowed to use the Firefox branding if you get MoFo sign-off on those changes; you can always redistribute it without the trademarks).

That's correct. At least it was the last time I chatted with the Mozilla folks about it and from a quick read of their current trademark policy.

It's a fork based on Firefox ESR, see for the details: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser/design/

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