Linked from download page: http://www.torproject.org/dist/vidalia-bundles/vidalia-bridge-bundle-0.2.4.22-0.2.21.exe
Why this tor.exe is bigger than TBB's one? Also, why TBB's tor.exe is not 0.2.4.22? (It's 0.2.4.21)
And why Tor project doesn't have a ZIP (or RAR) option? I don't give administrator privilege to unknown executable!
The benefit of using an .exe, especially on Windows is that you can achieve good compression and other features, while not requiring or relying special software.
Also at some point you have to execute an .exe (Tor and the Tor browser) anyways. If you are worried about your system you might try Tails. You can run that either on a different system or with your hard drive removed.
However keep in mind that with Tor being open source you can compile the project from source code on your own, creating your own executable. Especially on Windows you usually have to trust executable.
As a side note: Tor is under the BSD license, which means Microsoft could integrate Tor into Windows. In fact they integrate a lot of BSD licensed software already, just like Apple does on their system. Since one has got to rely on the operating system in first place privacy minded companies could probably be urged into doing so. This would probably be the most secure approach.
Speaking about compiling the source code in order to be able to trust the code you run. The Tor project is working on deterministic builds, which means you would be able to even compare the outcome of one person or company compiling it with the outcome of another in a cryptographic manner, which allows one to trust that the code hasn't been tampered with prior to compilation.
File was scanned by VirusTotal and it's clean, so you should not worry about it.
Also I think it's 0.2.4.22, but it was minor release so ignore the version.
Just give administrator privileges to run this executable.
File details:
Detection ratio: 1 / 51
Authenticode signature block
Product Vidalia Bridge Bundle
File version 0.2.4.22-0.2.21
Description Vidalia Bridge Bundle 0.2.4.22-0.2.21
Comments Vidalia Bridge Bundle 0.2.4.22-0.2.21
Target machine Intel 386 or later processors and compatible processors
Compilation timestamp 2009-12-05 22:50:46
Link date 11:50 PM 12/5/2009
Entry Point 0x0000323C
MD5 7407144903135b9adda4541964249587
SHA1 984a5ece5da7f6341cb14deb42112fc0d5e797a3
SHA256 14364cc7119cf2d1fc977c6997d1c925965b04af62fa979411b59bcbfc28a924
ssdeep196608:Kb/o+3HxdYb4PA2fLTOiMTiuuojulgly+FAzcBnMqnXG+p/fk+CF:KDZdnjPOjiuuQGzoMq78+CF
imphash 099c0646ea7282d232219f8807883be0
File size 9.0 MB ( 9387116 bytes )
File type Win32 EXE
