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Tor developers also provide numerous explanations for why Tor Project is discontinuing Tor Messenger after more than 2 years of existence of this messaging program.
Tor Project ceases development of Tor Messenger after more than 2 years
Tor Messenger was released in late 2015 with a bang, offering a fresh take on secure messaging.
Officially unveiled by the Tor Project in October 2015, Tor Messenger emerged as the go-to solution for replacing existing IM clients at the time.
What set Tor Messenger apart was its seamless integration of Off-the-Record (OTR) Messaging, activated by default to ensure all messages traversed the Tor network for maximum privacy and security.
Despite its launch, Tor developers candidly acknowledged that Tor Messenger wasn't bulletproof, given its client-server architecture, allowing metadata leaks even when servers couldn't access message content.
The Tor development team announced they were actively seeking alternatives to address the flaws in this architecture and would soon implement them in future releases.
As you know, Tor Browser is the epitome of secure, anonymous browsing. You can use Tor Browser to access Facebook or any blocked websites worldwide. If Facebook is blocked, follow the guide on accessing it via Tor Browser.
The Tor development team faces continuous challenges.
After 11 beta versions, the Tor development team couldn't produce a stable release. The major obstacle that led to developers abandoning the project was likely Mozilla's cessation of work on Instantbird, the underlying IM client for Tor Messenger.
Despite Mozilla integrating Instantbird's chat features into Thunderbird, the Tor development team lacked resources to continue developing a separate IM client or rebase Tor Messenger.
Even if they could extract chat features from the Thunderbird codebase, Tor developers still needed a GUI component for their IM client, which they lacked resources for.
But that's not the only issue. Tor developers also couldn't resolve the client-server architecture problem they promised to fix. This means servers could still log messages sent between Tor Messenger clients.
Tor Project stated: 'After all these iterations, Tor Messenger remains in beta, and we haven't completed independent audits (there have been 2 internal audits by Tor developers).' 'We've also had to disregard user requests for new features and bug reports due to limited resources allocated to the project.'
'For the reasons mentioned above, we've decided to halt the development of Tor Messenger. If users truly need XMPP, they can explore CoyIM, although the issue of centralized metadata remains,' said the Tor developers.
If you're seeking a secure messaging software to replace Tor Messenger, you can use software from the Top secure messaging software list on your computer or laptop. These are all top-notch, best-in-class secure messaging programs available today.
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