censortracker / censortracker

Censor Tracker is a censorship circumvention extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

Censor Tracker is a censorship circumvention extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

English | Russian

Features

Censor Tracker provides a lot of useful features, here are the most important:

• Configurable proxy
• Country-specific proxying
• Custom proxying list
• Censorship-resistant itself
• Warns about websites that transfer data to third parties

Permissions

Censor Tracker requires the following permissions:

• alarms to support periodic tasks
• activeTab to detect IDO websites
• management to be able to detect permission conflicts
• notifications to show notifications
• proxy to configure and use Censor Tracker proxy servers
• scripting to inject content scripts into websites
• storage to save preferences
• unlimitedStorage to save the database of blocked websites
• webNavigation for handling requests
• http://*/* and https://*/* to proxy any website, retrieve the list of proxy servers, and detect the user's country

Requirements

Censor Tracker works with following versions of browsers:

• Mozilla Firefox 98 or higher
• Chromium (Google Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera etc.) 94 or higher

Development

Prerequisites

Make sure you have required versions of node and npm, which are:

• node v17.4.0 or higher
• npm 8.3.1 or higher

Optionally, you may like:

• nvm

The build was tested only on the following operating systems:

• Ubuntu 19.10
• macOS Catalina v10.15.7

We don't guarantee that Censor Tracker will work on outdated versions of browsers, so make sure you're using the latest ones.

We've tested Censor Tracker on the following versions:

• Mozilla Firefox 98 or higher
• Google Chrome 94 or higher

Installation

Firstly, you will need to install dependencies:

~ npm install

Now you can build an extension for Chrome like this:

~ npm run build:chrome
~ cd dist/chrome

and for Firefox, like this:

~ npm run build:firefox
~ cd dist/firefox

Troubleshooting: If you're getting error on building an extension using npm, please make sure that your shell supports per-command environment variables (i.e something like this NODE_ENV=production npm run build:firefox:prod)

Going to production

You can build a production version of the extension for Chrome like this:

~ npm run build:chrome:prod
~ npm run release:chrome
~ cd release/chrome

and for Firefox like this:

~ npm run build:firefox:prod
~ npm run release:firefox
~ cd release/firefox

License

Censor Tracker is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

censortracker's Issues

Add more information to the landing page

Add more information about ORI and blocked websites to the landing page

Extension icons do not update immediately

Extension icons do not update immediately after clicking on the enable/disable button.

Shows icon of the extension in chrome://extensions/

The icon should be custom.

chrome.extension.getURL is deprecated

We must use chrome.runtime.getURL instead

Move scripts from global scope to window.censortracker

We need to move scripts from global scope to window.censortracker

Show only one description at the time

Add eslint support

It would be great to add eslint support

Show appropriate icon for new tabs when an extension is disabled

At this moment it shows the default icon but in grey.

Add pre-commit hooks for code style

I think that it's a good idea to have pre-commit hooks which will check code style.

Of course, we must add information about it to README.

Opt-out of localForage

It seems like there is no need in third-party storage because chrome allows using unlimited storage.

So it's better to opt-out of localforage and uses standard chrome storage instead.

Move setPageIcon to settings

Use pageAction instead of browserAction

As @Piterden suggested in our private discussion, this one can fix issue with duplication of logs and other bugs: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/pageAction

Change icon for the extension

We need icons that more accurately convey the essence of what is happening in the browser.

We have already ordered new icons, so we just need to wait.

Add tests (unit, Selenium)

We need to cover our code with tests because tests are extremely important especially for open source projects.

Merge background scripts into one file

We can use gulp-concat for this.

PAC file extending performance on detecting DPI

It takes at least 2-3 seconds to extend the PAC file when extension detects DPI lock.

This is not acceptable. PAC must be extended immediately.

The last two messages are ones where logic takes 2-3 seconds:

Think about the possibility of migration to TypeScript

At this moment we have not really big codebase, so it must be easy if we going to do it.

Pros:

• Optional static typing
• Almost standard for modern web applications

Cons:

• Pros are not strong enough to do it

Remove unsafe fallback from PAC data

It's better to move it to settings.js:

https://github.com/roskomsvoboda/censortracker/blob/85ac6b20cbd335ca7ece4a309255bd0327137cad/src/chrome/js/core/proxies.js#L170

Issues with some internet providers

Seems like some users of Rostelecom have problems with some websites (telegram).

Wrap Chrome API to make it support async/await syntax.

The idea is pretty simple. We need to wrap Chrome API to make it support async/await syntax.

This is how it works right now (callbacks):

chrome.tabs.query({ active: true, lastFocusedWindow: true }, ([tab]) => {
  console.log(tab.id)
})

This is how it will work with promise-based API:

const { id } = await chrome.tabs
  .query({ active: true, lastFocusedWindow: true })
  .catch(console.error)

See src/chrome/promises/index.js

Use promises instead of callbacks

It's better to use promises instead of callbacks.

Integrate standard: JavaScript Style Guide

We need to follow standards in our code, so I think this tool can help us: https://github.com/standard/standard

Show a page about the unavailability of the proxy server when a ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED occurs.

It's better to inform the user that we have some problems with our proxy server and that the problem is temporary.

Displaying the page about unavailability when the extension is turned off.

The unavailability page should not be displayed when the extension is turned off.

https everywhere

Насколько я понимаю, расширение на данный момент форсирует использование https. Возможно ли добавить исключения для некоторых адресов?

Keep the same extension ID during development.

Extension id must be the same during development to make testing easier.

What should be done:

# Create private key called key.pem
openssl genrsa 2048 | openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -nocrypt -out key.pem

# Generate string to be used as "key" in manifest.json (outputs to stdout)
openssl rsa -in key.pem -pubout -outform DER | openssl base64 -A

# Calculate extension ID (outputs to stdout)
openssl rsa -in key.pem -pubout -outform DER | sha256sum | head -c32 | tr 0-9a-f a-p

On creating release key must be removed from manifest.json since Chrome Web Store rejects such packages.

Page duplication

The page refused.html duplicates on opening new tab.

Show last synchronization timestamp in popup

For some reason after refactoring timestamp disappeared from pop up and we need to bring it back.

Sometimes extensions show incorrect page icon

Sometimes extensions show an incorrect icon for blocked resources and ORI.

Show more information about domain

This is where we can use DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar.

Eliminate data nesting in registry.js

Eliminate data nesting for the local databases (registry.js).

Add Travis CI support

We need to integrate Travis CI for this project.

PAC script do not generated on install

CensorTracker does not generate PAC data on install and this causes that bug which shows proxying page for every resource even if it in the registry.

Make CI support Selenium

We need to make our CI support selenium tests.

It Github Actions cannot work with Selenium then we must migrate to Travis CI.

Opt-out of jQuery

I think we should not use jQuery for DOM manipulation. It's better to use Vanilla JS for it.

There are only a few places where we use jQuery in our code so it's totally overhead.

Add padding for icon status

Add padding-right: 40px for .block__title

Extending PAC file before clicking on corresponding button

We need to move this logic from background to unavailable.js

onUpdated executes four times

For incomprehensible reasons chrome.tabs.onUpdated executes its listener four times.

Cyclic redirection on proxying some websites

Sometimes extensions cyclically redirect websites when trying to open blocked websites using the proxy.

Extend local database of domains on detecting new lock

Extend local database of domains on detecting new locks to ensure the correct work of domainsContains.

Add Google Analytics

We need to be aware of the number of users, so it's a good idea to use Google Analytics in CWS.

Do not enforce redirect to HTTPS for special-purpose IP addresses.

The handler of requests should ignore special-purpose IP addresses (see RFC6890 for more details).

The ignore list:

0.0.0.0/8 # (0.0.0.0-0.255.255.255)
10.0.0.0/8 # (10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255)
100.64.0.0/10 # 100.64.0.0-100.127.255.255
127.0.0.0/8 # (127.0.0.0-127.255.255.255)
169.254.0.0/16 # (169.254.0.0-169.254.255.255)
192.168.0.0/16
198.51.100.0/24
203.0.113.0/24
224.0.0.0/4
240.0.0.0/4

#IPv6
::/128
::1/128
::/96
::ffff:/96
64::ff9b::/96
2001:db8::/32
fe80::/10
fec0::/10
fc00::/7
ff00::/8

Related: #61

Use promises instead of callbacks

It's better to use promises instead of callbacks. This will improve the quality and readability of the code.

Redesign

• Redesign unavailable.html and proxy_unavailable.html pages
• Redesign popup
• Redesign icons

The function updateState executed each time user click on the tab

For incomprehensible reasons chrome.tabs.onUpdated executes its listener four times.

Update:

Well, seems like this is completely normal behavior for chrome.tabs.onUpdated because it fires for iframes too.

So, we must use webNavigation.onCompleted instead.

Move enableExtension/disableExtension to settings

These functions do not belongs to shortcuts at all, so it's better to move them to settings.

Opt-out Material Design Bootstrap.

We use about 0.1% of all the features which provide MDB. It's better to write styles manually and opt-out of unnecessary dependencies.

Create command for building crx fille dynamically

Something like this:

npm run build:crx

Error on extending ignoredSites

There are errors in extending an array of ignored sites. Most likely they occur because of an undefined default value.

Hide the proxying button when params do not present in the URL

It's better to hide this button when params do not present in the URL to avoid misunderstanding.