We’ve been working away at the 0.0.9 release of Orbot over the last few months, and have put a decent amount of effort into usability. Specifically, we hoped to better communicate to users what it means to run Tor on your Android phone. In addition, we wanted to clearly lay out how the various configuration options help to improve your mobile web anonymity and ability to circumvent web filters and tracking by your mobile service provider.
The screenshots below are what you see the first time you install and run Orbot, and also whenever you open the “Help” menu. One important thing to point out is that Orbot can run with or without root, and our setup UI responds to having the capability or not accordingly.
Ultimately our goal is to provide a useful bootstrap experience for novice and advanced users alike. We welcome your feedback.
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- permissions… we actually will only be asking for INTERNET – so don’t mind the “phone status” permission
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- Your basic install screen
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- A friendly welcome
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- About Orbot!
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- we ask nicely to get root permissions, if possible
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- if the user doesn’t have root, we make sure they understand the implications
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- Offer direct downloads of Orbot/Tor enabled apps
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- (Root only) choose whether to “Torify All” or choose app by app
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- (Root only) Select to send all network traffic through Tor
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- (Root only) Select which apps you want to route through Tor
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- This is the final step
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- We’ve got root!
