Using Tor and Privoxy in Firefox Web Browser
Tor(The Onion Router) is a toolset to improve your anonymity online. My main purpose here, is to surf websites that are banned by my ISP, or websites that banned my ISP. Its concept might sound a lot complicated, but getting it to work was just easy on my Debian box.
To start, you’ll need to install these packages in unstable pool.
- tor
- privoxy
After installing these 2 packages, using this firefox extension will set your firefox ready. You need to restart your browser in order for the extension to work. Here’s a screenshot of torbutton, it should appear on right part of status bar.

Single click on the Torbutton will turn it on/off. Configuration of privoxy(it has a lot of filters by default) can be done by browsing this location “http://p.p/” in your firefox browser. Detailed configuration please refer to privoxy.org
To “Torify” other applications, if supported, you can use these proxy settings.
- HTTP Proxy: localhost:8118
- Socks4a: 127.0.0.1:9050
There’s a very detailed instruction to torify various application here. If you enjoy the features of Tor, and happy using it, please contribute some of your bandwidth by serving your computer as a node/server. Detail instruction can be found here.
[color=red]Warning: Using Tor with BitTorrent or other P2P traffic is highly unethical, and not recommended.[/color]
Update on 14th Jan 2007
I am getting quite some traffic in for this post. Windows users, I’m sorry that I can’t you help much with this post. However, there’s a detailed instruction posted on Tor website for windows installation, you can find it here
.
Update on 24th April 2007
Check out this recent post if you are looking for a simpler web proxy solution.

There is of course a prepackaged, portable equivalent. It’s ready to go straight out of the box – TorPark.
http://www.torrify.com
Any thoughts on comparisions: weaknesses, strengths, etc?
I’ll look at it when I’m free. Thanks.
Oh, windows executable. Sorry SomeGuy I am unable to test it, maybe someone else with windows machine can provide some feedbacks to you.
I like it, another sweet addon for firefox to keep me anonymous
Hello
Very interesting information! Thanks!
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Thank you author
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