This guide explains how to browse webpages anonymously using Firefox. For more details please see the original guide (http://tor.eff.org/docs/tor-doc-unix.html.en).
Step One: Install Tor and Privoxy
Privoxy is a filtering web proxy that integrates well with Tor.
From a terminal, type:
sudo apt-get install tor privoxy
OR find the Synaptic Package Manager in your menu and install the two packages tor and privoxy.
After installing Tor, you need to configure your applications to use it. Tor comes configured as a client by default. It uses a built-in default configuration file, and most people won't need to change any of the settings.
Step Two: Configure Privoxy for Web Browsing
The first step is to set up web browsing. Once you've installed Privoxy (Step One), you will need to configure Privoxy to use Tor. Open Privoxys
forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
to the top of the config file. Do not forget to add the dot at the end.
Privoxy keeps a log file of everything passed through it. In order to stop this you will need to comment out three lines by inserting a # before the line. The three lines are: (don't worry if you do not have the 3rd)
logfile logfile
jarfile jarfile
debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
Note that the config must edited as the root user, you can do this from a terminal by typing sudo nano /etc/privoxy/config. It will prompt for your password. If you've never used nano before, the commands are listed at the bottom of the screen.
You'll need to restart Privoxy for the changes to take effect. To do this, type
sudo /etc/init.d/privoxy restart
Step Three: Configure your applications to use Tor
After installing Tor and Privoxy, you need to configure Firefox to use them.
Install the Torbutton plugin, restart your Firefox, and you are all set:
Click here for the Torbutton plugin page (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2275/)
Learn more about Torbutton here.
(https://torbutton.torproject.org)
In the bottom right hand corner of the browser you'll see
Step Four: Make sure it is working
Next, you should try using your browser with Tor and make sure that your IP address is being anonymized. Click on the Tor detector (http://torcheck.xenobite.eu) and see whether it thinks you're using Tor or not. (If that site is down, see this FAQ entry (http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#FirewalledClient) for more suggestions on how to test your Tor.)
If it's still not working, look at this FAQ entry (http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#ItDoesntWork) for hints.
(Optional) Step Five: Torrifying access to certain sites
If you only want to hide your identity from certain sites you can tell Privoxy to use Tor for them only.
In Step Two, we configured Privoxy to use Tor for all websites, which will happen whenever the Torbutton is on. If you would rather create a "blacklist" of individual websites to hide your identity from, you can add something like:
forward-socks4a *.google.* 127.0.0.1:9050 .
forward-socks4a *.google-analytics.* 127.0.0.1:9050 .
forward-socks4a *.amazon.* 127.0.0.1:9050 .
to /etc/privoxy/config . Now, whenever Torbutton is on, you will visit the sites in the list above anonymously, and all other sites non-anonymously.
Warning: this provides only a very weak form of anonymity, and might confuse you since Torbutton will be on during non-anonymous browsing. Here's why this is weak. Suppose you visit http://www.bob.com, enter the query 'asdf' at time 04:01:02. When bob.com returns your page, there is a link, which goes to http://www.evilbob.com?q=asdf&t=040102. EvilBob records your IP, your query and the time, redirects your browser to the link you wanted, then shares this information with Bob. Use step 5 at your own risk
Feedback about this guide can be sent to gzaveruc at cs.uwaterloo.ca.
