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Building

Build Dependencies

SHORTCUT: All the build artifacts can be produced by the description in the .yaml files in .github/workflows. These can be run on Github's infrastructure, or on a local PC using https://github.com/nektos/act. Windows targets will require a Windows PC! Doing things this way deals with all the dependency issues that Windows doesn't really give you a good way to deal with automatically. It also guarantees that the same base container and environment gets used for every build no matter what machine it runs on. I highly recommend you use either Github CI or nektos/act for dev builds of this software, as it automates literally every one of the steps. CI-based builds follow the WSL version of the instructions.

You will need ant and java java and for building the jar. You will need jpackage for many of the potential build targets. I've been using Java 18 on Debian mostly, on Debian and Ubuntu, install the dependencies with:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-18* ant

Some of the targets use scripts written in Go to help generate resources. If you want to update the profiles, you will need them. To install Go on Debian and Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install golang-go

Add $HOME/go/bin to your $PATH so ant can find Go applications.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/go/bin

Then use Go to download the applications you need and add them to $HOME/go/bin.

If you want to build the Chromium profiles you will need a Go application called crx3 which is used to interact with the Chrome app store to download and update extensions.

go install github.com/mediabuyerbot/go-crx3/crx3@latest

Another Go application, called amo-version, is used to fetch extensions from addons.mozilla.org. Like the Chrome profiles, generating the Firefox profiles requires this application. If you don't want to update the profiles, you don't need it.

go install github.com/eyedeekay/amo-version@latest

One last Go application, called dzip is used to generate zip files deterministically for redistribution.

go install github.com/delicb/dzip@latest

If you don't want to use it, you can work around it by creating a file called dzip in /usr/local/bin/dzip and adding the contents:

#! /usr/bin/env sh
zip -r $@

This will break deterministic builds, but for testing it will continue to work. More elaborate scripts or other deterministic zip utilities can be easily substituted in by placing them in the $PATH under the name dzip.

For Fedora, use Yum, for Arch use pacman or something else but make sure to tell everyone about it. Once you have that installed, when building, make sure to add $GOPATH/bin/ to your $PATH.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/go/bin

Will almost always work.

Building

This is not actually a plugin yet, but it will be soon. The important bit is the jar. To generate that, you can either generate the full plugin, which will not work but produces the jar as a by-product, or you can:

ant jar

To build just the jar. You'll know it worked if you can:

java -cp ./src/build/i2pfirefox.jar net.i2p.i2pfirefox.I2PFirefox

and a new Firefox instance comes up with a fresh profile, ready-to-use for I2P browsing.

The cooler thing you can do with it is add it to an I2P distribution and somewhere in it, add a UI element that triggers something along the lines of this:

// Firefox Example
if (i2pIsRunning()) {
    logger.warning("I2P is already running");
    System.out.println("I2PFirefox");
    I2PFirefox i2pFirefox = new I2PFirefox();
    i2pFirefox.launch();
}
// Chromium Example
if (i2pIsRunning()) {
    logger.warning("I2P is already running");
    System.out.println("I2PChromium");
    I2PChromium i2pChromium = new I2PChromium();
    i2pChromium.launch();
}
// Auto-Select Example, chooses Firefox first, then Chromium
if (i2pIsRunning()) {
    logger.warning("I2P is already running");
    System.out.println("I2PBrowser");
    I2PBrowser i2pBrowser = new I2PBrowser();
    /*
     * toggle chromium to the top of the order by doing:
    I2PBrowser.chromiumFirst = true;
     * 
    */
    i2pBrowser.launch(privateBrowsing);
}

to add a browser management tool to it.

Browser Discovery Methods

This tool looks for browsers on the host system, creates a workspace to use for I2P purposes, and launches the browser inside of that workspace. The details of the workspace vary from browser to browser but roughly corresponds to a browser profile. In order to be successful this tool uses 3 main types of browser discovery methods, in this order:

  1. "Local" discovery, where a browser is in a subdirectory of the directory where you ran the launcher. This will only happen if the user unpacked a portable browser into the same directory where they ran the launcher.
  2. "Path-Based" discovery, where it scans common browser installation directories until it finds one which it can use. On Unix, it simply scans the directories on the PATH for a browser it knows about. On Windows, default paths to browser install directories are hard-coded and included in the binary. This is what usually happens.
  3. "System-Based" discovery, where it defers to the host system to make a choice about the browser and counts on browser vendors to honor the system proxy environment variables. This is a catch-all solution which works with most browsers, but does not apply any customizations.

There is a little subtlety here though.

  • The path to Edgium on Windows will always resolve during path-based discovery, resulting in a positive test for Chromium when launching the browser in auto-select mode. So Windows will never reach stage 3 unless expressly forced to. If Firefox or a variant is installed, it will be chosen before Edgium unless directed otherwise.
  • Even though it will launch you into Edgium if it has no other choice, I recommend you do not use it. Edgium will in a constant, incessant way try to induce you to share your behavior with Microsoft. If you try to resist this, it negatively affects the performance of the browser. Google also does this with Chrome, ant this negatively affects Chrome performance too, but less than with Edgium. TL:DR Edgium sucks and is pointless and terrible. Literally any other browser would be better.
  • Linux is unaware of a Tor Browser path because Tor Browser is rarely, if ever, installed on-path. What is on path is virtually always a wrapper for Tor Browser which is installed either as the main user or it's own user. Linux will only use Tor Browser if it's discovered in "Local" mode. To set this up automatically, you can cd to the I2P directory where you unpacked the .tar.gz file, and run the ./lib/torbrowser.sh script from there.
  • I really only test Phase 3 with Dillo and Edgium. YMMV.

Usability vs Strict

This is basically a profile-management tool geared toward minimizing the differences between browser users which are passively discernible while they are browsing I2P. It assumes that they are part of a highly fragmented browsing environment where they are already unique, and therefore consolidation on configuration is a goal. However, this goal sometimes also conflicts with usability. To allow users a safe set of choices, we offer "Coarse" configuration in 2 modes. We recommend that you do not deviate from these configurations if you have browser application fingerprinting as a concern.

Usability Mode

TODO: description

Pros: Allows a restricted subset of Javascript Pros: Less likely to try and reach the clearnet

Cons: Looks very different from Tor Browser Cons: Plugin updates can create temporary uniqueness

Usability Extension Set

  • I2P In Private Browsing
  • uMatrix
  • jsRestrictor
  • LocalCDN
  • Onion in Container Tabs
  • HTTPS EveryWhere in some configurations

Usability user.js characteristics

TODO: Summarize differences

Strict Mode

TODO: description

Pros: Does not allow Javascript by default Pros: Looks a lot like Tor Browser especially if you're using Tor Browser

Cons: More work to use Cons: Temporary uniqueness can be created by enabling Javascript for specific sites Cons: More likely to try and reach the clearnet

Strict Extension Set

  • NoScript
  • I2P In Private Browsing
  • HTTPS EveryWhere in some configurations

Strict user.js characteristics

TODO: Summarize differences