How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

computerwhiz1 · 2014-05-22 06:38:17

I installed tor-browser-en from the AUR and everything is working great, however I was wondering if there was anyway I could have it show up as its own application when I run it rather than labeling its self as firefox. Under Ubuntu when you run it, it will have its own icon and own spot in the "dock". Under Arch, at least in GNOME 3, it shows up as firefox in the dock. It has its own name and icon to launch it, but when running it labels its self as firefox. Is there anyway to change this without too much trouble?

ooo · 2014-05-22 11:53:58

if tor browser's WM_CLASS (or possibly WM_NAME) differs from standard firefox, you should be able to fix this with StartupWMClass in tor-browser's .desktop file.
you can use xorg-xprop for checking the WM_CLASS of an application.

If you get it sorted out you should bug the AUR package maintainer to apply this to the package.

computerwhiz1 · 2014-05-22 16:08:42

Ok, after some more tinkering I was able to determine that tor is using the firefox.desktop file. It has its own tor-browser-en.desktop file but changing that results in nothing. If I change the firefox.desktop file those changed apply to the tor browser as well. The leads me to beleive that tor is calling its self firefox on a lower level, but I don't have enough know-how to change this. Any ideas?

Trilby · 2014-05-22 17:42:28

binaries don't use .desktop files, .desktop files use binaries.

Is the firefox.desktop you are talking about in /usr/share/applications? Or is it in ~/.local/share/applications?

If it is the former, do you also have firefox installed, and/or what package owns this file?

computerwhiz1 · 2014-05-22 20:18:20

Ok, in order to figure things out I started by seeing how the Ubuntu version worked and comparing that to the Arch version to see if the Ubuntu scripts had any differences. I couldn't find any so I removed tor browser using pacman and then copied over the Ubuntu version from my Ubuntu partition.

It essentially works like this. First, the

tor-browser-en.desktop

calls

/usr/bin/tor-browser-en

that script checks some things and then proceeds to call

~/.tor-browser-en/start-tor-browser

that script then launches its own version of Firefox which is modified.

I copied all of these files from Ubuntu where they launch as its own application and put them in their respective locations under Arch. It launches and works fine but still calls its self firefox. I don't really know what else to do. Obviously there is some difference in how Unity and GNOME 3 are getting the application name. I would assume Unity is picking up the name from the .desktop file while GNOME 3 is getting the name from the fact that the last script literally launches a firefox app. If anyone else has any other ideas let me know.

computerwhiz1 · 2014-05-22 22:44:37

Ok, so it has to be something with the way GNOME 3 handles it. Under KDE it works fine and shows up as its own application, however in GNOME 3 or Cinnamon, it runs as firefox. Anyone know why that might be?

computerwhiz1 · 2014-05-23 04:23:57

I got it figured out. Information was gained from this bug report on the Tor website: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11102. All you have to do is change the line in '~/.tor-browser-en/start-tor-browser' that starts the browser from

 
./Browser/firefox -no-remote -profile Data/Browser/profile.default ${@}

to

./Browser/firefox -no-remote --class "Tor Browser" -profile Data/Browser/profile.default ${@}

by adding

--class "Tor Browser"

That is all you have to do and it will resolve the issue. I will be contacting the AUR maintainer with this information.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-05-22 06:38:17

How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

#2 2014-05-22 11:53:58

Re: How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

#3 2014-05-22 16:08:42

Re: How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

#4 2014-05-22 17:42:28

Re: How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

#5 2014-05-22 20:18:20

Re: How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

#6 2014-05-22 22:44:37

Re: How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

#7 2014-05-23 04:23:57

Re: How can I make Tor Browser show up as its own application?

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