release of the toolkit , used for organizing the operation of the anonymous Tor network. Version Tor 0.4.4.5 is recognized as the first stable release of the 0.4.4 branch, which has been developed over the past five months. The 0.4.4 branch will be supported within the standard maintenance cycle—release of updates will cease in 9 months (in June 2021) or 3 months after the release of the 0.4.5.x branch. Long-term support (LTS) is provided for the 0.3.5 branch, for which updates will be released until February 1, 2022. Support for branches 0.4.0.x, 0.2.9.x, and 0.4.2.x has been discontinued. Support for branch 0.4.1.x will be discontinued on May 20, and 0.4.3 on February 15, 2021.
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- The algorithm for selecting guard nodes has been improved (), which has resolved the issue of load balancing while enhancing performance and security. In the new algorithm, a recently selected guard node cannot attain primary status unless all previously selected guard nodes are unreachable.
- Load balancing functionality for onion services has been implemented. A service based on version three of the protocol can now act as a backend for OnionBalance, configurable using the HiddenServiceOnionBalanceInstance option.
- The list of backup directory servers has been updated, which had not been refreshed since last year; out of 148 servers, 105 remain operational (the new list includes 144 entries generated in July).
- Relay nodes are now allowed to work with cells , available only via IPv6 address, and it is also permitted to perform chain extension operations over IPv6 if both the client and relay support IPv6. When extending node chains, if a cell is reachable simultaneously via IPv4 and IPv6, either the IPv4 or IPv6 address is chosen at random. Existing IPv6 connections can be used for chain extension. The use of internal IPv4 and IPv6 addresses is prohibited.
- The volume of code that can be disabled when starting Tor without relay support has been expanded.
Source: opennet.ru
