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Usually I install software by using the relevant Debian packages from either Debian directly or through third party repositories like Tor's deb.torproject.org.

Unfortunately, at this time the Tor Browser Bundle is only available as a tarball download.

What do people do to keep current other than manually updating things whenever the Tor Browser reports it's out of date?

(Feel free to also share your answer if it works only for Windows or OS X.)

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  • possible duplicate of How can I switch from one Tor Browser Bundle version to another?
    – Jens Kubieziel ♦
    Oct 3, 2013 at 21:22
  • 2
    @JensKubieziel, I don't think it's the same question. The one you reference appears to be concerned with keeping state across updates, manual or otherwise. This one is about actually getting the TBB to upgrade, without requiring manually downloading, verifying signatures, etc.
    – weasel - Peter Palfrader
    Oct 3, 2013 at 21:35
  • very annoying. I do believe you-all could do a better job. And what is it about the Start Page issue - if you happen to be blind how could one possibly deal w/ a captcha?.!
    – user5391
    Dec 28, 2014 at 2:20
  • as a temporary measure or work-around, git could be used to keep some configuration files up to date. I think I've seen this done with some apps, but none I can think of at the moment.
    – Thufir
    Jul 28, 2019 at 9:42

3 Answers 3

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For the time being the "manual" way is the officially proposed by the Tor Project and that's most users should follow.

Also note that the Tor Project is examining various Firefox-like updater options which may integrate to Tor Browser sooner or later

Nevertheless the procedure could be automated in other ways too and that is what Micah F Lee tries to accomplish with the tor-browser-launcher. Tor-browser-launcher could be distributed by user's Linux system, but unfortunately the feature request bug for Debian still remains open. As soon as tor-browser-launcher or some equivalent finds its way to most systems and is easy to install then probably will be the best option to maintain an up-to-date Tor Browser.

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Development work for an autoupdate function within the Tor Browser Bundle is ongoing. The solution we give out to people right now involves following the link in the Tor Browser's Onion menu to https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en, downloading the package, verifying the signature, then closing the Tor Browser, deleting your Tor Browser folder, and unpacking the Tor Browser again.

Since overwriting one's old Tor Browser folder often (but not always) causes weird breakages, we don't recommend doing that. Admittedly, the method just described confuses a number of people who click the link in the Onion menu to download the new Tor Browser Bundle, then get transferred to the download page and aren't sure what to do from there.

So to answer your question, updating "manually" is currently the only way of updating effectively.

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For Linux Distros

https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher

Securely and easily download, verify, install, and launch Tor Browser in Linux

It is recommended to install via Flatpak or PPA instead of default OS package manager if you want the latest updates. See the repo README for up-to-date installation instructions.

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