There is a bug with recent versions of Orbot (16.0.2-RC-1, 16.0.5-RC-2-tor-0.3.4.9) that causes HTTP proxying to fail (HTTPS proxying works just fine). That means that webpages that begin with https:// will load just fine but webpages that begin with http:// will not.
I have filed a bug report with the developers of Orbot. Those who would like to see this issue fixed should add a comment to this bug report.
There are two workaround you can use until they release an update that fixes the problem.
- Downgrade to version 16.0.0-RC-2 of Orbot, which works fine.
- Enable Orbot’s VPN mode and disable Privacy Browser’s Orbot proxy setting. Privacy Browser’s URL bar background will not be blue, but all traffic will be routed through Tor because of the OS level VPN. The potential downside to this workaround is that all the device’s traffic is being forced through Tor, which may not be desired.
Update: with the release of Privacy Browser 3.3, Tor proxying has been switched to using SOCKS, which resolves this problem.
5 responses to “Problems with Orbot”
Hey, why does Privacy Browser autocomplete URLs with http anyway, instead of https? Without that non-feature the Orbot bug wouldn’t bother in 99% of the cases anyhow. Could you fix that or is there a hidden option within the settings I didn’t see?
Thanks a lot!
I will make the change for the next release of Privacy Browser. https://redmine.stoutner.com/issues/165
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