Available now for all GNU/Linux operating systems

Sep 26, 2016 21:00 GMT  ·  By

The Tor Project has recently announced the release of yet another important maintenance update to the stable Tor 0.2.8.x series of the free, open-source software to protect your anonymity while surfing the Internet.

Tor 0.2.8.8 is now the latest and most advanced version of the software designed to allow you to connect to the anonymous TOR (The Onion Router) network if you don't want to be tracked by various government agencies or other third-party tracking apps. It replaces Tor 0.2.8.7 released last month with the new "Bifroest" bridge authority.

The biggest changes in Tor 0.2.8.8 are fixes for two bugs that caused the software to crash, as reported by users from previous maintenance versions from the 0.2.8.x series. The first one is related to the OpenBSD platform, but it could affect other supported UNIX and Linux OSes as well.

"Fix a complicated crash bug that could affect Tor clients configured to use bridges when replacing a networkstatus consensus in which one of their bridges was mentioned. OpenBSD users saw more crashes here, but all platforms were potentially affected," reads the release announcement.

Relays running 0.2.8.x need to upgrade as soon as possible

Additionally, Tor 0.2.8.8 addresses a timing-dependent assertion failure, which might occur when flushing from a circuit after having freed its cells due to an out-of-memory condition, and it also removes several fallbacks from the hard-coded fallback directory list as they were broken.

Last but not least, it updates the geoip and geoip6 database to the September 6, 2016 build of the Maxmind GeoLite2 Country database. Tor Project urges all relays running Tor 0.2.8.7 or a previous version, as well as users who chose public relays as their bridges, to update to Tor 0.2.8.8 as soon as possible.

Download Tor 0.2.8.8 right now via our website.