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Changes
Below are the major changes of the released versions and links to more detailed release notes.
Alpha
There are two major features in this very first alpha release of the 0.4.8.x series. They are explain only briefly below but expect much more details when the stable version is released in the coming months.
Conflux
This is essentially traffic splitting. If enabled, Tor will create multiple circuits (legs) to the same exit for the same stream for performance and stability reasons. Onion services are not supported at the moment.
At the moment, very few Exit node supports Conflux and so enabling this feature might not be beneficial for you. Once a critical mass of relays upgrade to the 0.4.8.x series, we’ll flip a switch in the consensus for all clients to start using it.
In the meantime, if you know what you are doing and want to help iron out bugs, you can enable this feature by setting ConfluxEnabled 1 in your torrc file.
[Correction] Conflux is enabled by default but limited to 1 pre-built circuit due to the low threshold of Exit relay supporting Conflux. As soon as that threshold goes above 60%, that number of circuits will go up to 3 unless specified otherwise in the consensus.
For a more in depth look, see proposal 329.
Onion Service Proof-of-Work (PoW)
This is a DoS mitigation feature which requires a client to solve a “puzzle” and prove the service it has the solution. The rendezvous requests are prioritized, at the service, based on the amount of effort a client chooses to put in the puzzle. The priority queue also adapts to the attack load and disable puzzle entirely if the service is not overloaded.
To enable this, set HiddenServicePoWDefensesEnabled 1 in your torrc. Please read the man page for more information.
For a more in depth look, see proposal 327