Security-focused Tor Messenger enters beta

The Tor Project has announced the availability of the beta version of its security-focused, cross-platform chat application Tor Messenger. "There have been three previous alpha releases to the mailing lists that have already helped smooth out some of the rougher edges," the team behind the messenger said in a blog post. Image credit: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac Tor Messenger is based on Instantbird IM client developed in the Mozilla community. Its USP is that it sends all of its traffic over Tor, an anonymizing network that consists of thousands of nodes (called onion routers) that are located all over the world. It supports various transport networks - including Jabber (XMPP), IRC, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Twitter, and Yahoo - and uses Off-the-Record (OTR) protocol by default for encrypting your messages. "Tor gives us location anonymity. OTR gives us encryption and secrecy," said Sukhbir Singh, a Tor Messenger developer. Source |...