Tor questions

I've never used an anonymous proxy before and don't know much about them. I've recently read about a free application on here called 'Tor', am I right in thinking that all you need to do is download this onto your system, run it, and then when you connect to the internet through your browser any sites you visit will see a Tor ip address rather than the one provided by your ISP?

Thanks
Londonbeat

 

Pretty much right on ... you'll need privoxy too. Then set your browser connections like the screenshot below. Doing so will break the ftp protocal for example, but it's done to prevent any leaks.

 

Thanks Dog, what is privoxy, i.e. what does it do that Tor doesn't? I've had a look at the site but there's a lot to take in, is it necessary to use that with Tor or can you run Tor without it?

Londonbeat

 

Yes Privoxy is required because there are DNS leaks when tor is used directly ... it will also filter out bad headers ... referrers etc.

I suggest you download the Vidalia bundle which includes both privoxy and tor + the Vidalia controller GUI. The Win32 installation instructions can be found here if you'd rather just install tor and privoxy - but I'd suggest you go with the bundle - it'd be much simpler.

 

A couple other options are Firefox w\Tor (have tried it and is a bit "strange".) No longer have it installed on any of my PCs`. It will however run from a USB thumb drive. (which I do use but rarely) I also understand Opera has a Tor version, (have not tried) Be aware that it will slow down your browsing speed sense additional connections\hops are required to create the connections. I am not supplying links as there are several and I will leave the d\l site to the EUs` discretion. Easy enough to find by doing a Google.

 

Ps. If you use Firefox; grab the Tor Button Extension it's a nice quick toggle button to switch the browsers connecting settings in one button press.

 

@ Londonbeat. You may also want to read this. I do not know how it all ended up as I have not followed the story. https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=146429&highlight=German+servers

 

The server was returned to the operator fairly quickly (approx. 3 days) ... there was no issue at all in the end.

 

Thanks for the info. Dog. Sometimes I just do`t have the time or forget to follow up on some things. @ Londonbeat. Let us know which way you decide to go and how it works. I like Torpark Firefox when run off my thumb drive other then the slower launch time (because of it being on a thumb drive) and the before mentioned slower browsing time. Going to try out the Tor Button extension mentioned by Dog.

 

Thanks for the info and suggestions guys, Im going to go with Dog's suggestion and install the bundle, when I install it though I get the following error about privoxy, is this normal? Or does something need fixing?

 

Over my head on this one. Hopefully some one using Privoxy will check in with some info.

 

There should be a config.txt file in your Privoxy program folder. If there is not, you can download a special one (created by Kye-U specifically for use with Proxomitron and Tor) from here.

 

Yeah there is a one 31kb in size in the privoxy folder, but I still get the error message, I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling too, but no luck its just the same.

 

I've rebooted and privoxy loaded fine now, configured firefox and it seems to be working fine, thanks again for help, all.

Londonbeat

 

What about JAP?
Isn't it a standalone thing? Just need to set proxys on the browser?

 

JAP uses a mix server rather than an onion router (which is how Tor works). Tor offers better security since traffic is sent via 3 other systems and it has several hundred volunteer servers worldwide. JAP by default uses just one server in Dresden.

However the JAP client can be used to connect to Tor also - Privoxy would (probably) still be needed since the client would be acting as a SOCKS proxy which most browsers can't connect to directly (Firefox can, but you then have the DNS leak problem).

 

This method is a work around for the DNS leak in Firefox and can be used directly with Tor