Anonymous Surfing becomes necessary whenever you need to hide your identity (ip address) while browsing the internet, as for privacy purpose or, may be you want to surf certain websites through a firewall for blocked websites. Both Windows and Linux users can use Vidalia software program to solve these situations.
Also read: Install Opera Mini on Ubuntu and Access Blocked Websites on PC
The tutorial will guide you through the installation and setting up Tor and Vidalia on your Linux and Windows system for anonymous browsing. Beginning with the Linux installation guide, Windows users move to bottom of the post for installation details.
Install and Setting Up Tor & Vidalia on Linux
Before proceeding further, one thing that you should know is the difference in Tor and Vidalia. Tor is a piece of software that provide you the anonymity while you surf around the web and it is command based. Vidalia a GUI implementation for Tor that makes it easy to use Tor through a GUI.
Installing Tor in Linux
1. Ubuntu users can add the repositories by adding these two lines at the bottom of the file /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main
Where <DISTRIBUTION> is the first name of your distribution. For example if you’re using Lucid Lynx then add repository:
deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org lucid main
Also, add GPG key by commands
gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89
gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -
Tor Installation
apt-get update
apt-get install tor tor-geoipdb
If you use any other Linux distro, you will get details of installation for your Linux candidate here.
2. Now we need to setup web proxy so that it can act as a cache. Polipo is a small caching web proxy. It also does the work of pipelining (reduce the number of TCP/IP packets so that the loading improves). So it is beneficial for Tor’s latencies.
Install Polipo (uninstall Privoxy to avoid as Polipo and Privoxy config files use same port 8118)
sudo apt-get install polipo
Now edit the config file /etc/polipo/config. Delete all its content and replace it with the content of file Polipo.conf. (Extract and Copy the content from config file)
Restart Polipo
/etc/init.d/polipo restart
3. Now configure your browser to use Tor using Proxy Settings at 127.0.0.1 with Port 8118. For Firefox you may install tor button add on for ease.
Installing and Using Vidalia in Linux
For installation of Vidalia in Ubuntu, just use command:
sudo apt-get install vidalia
You may get the error that Tor is not running. It means that tor is already running on the Linux system or you don’t have Authentication password set on Windows System . To stop tor running already use command in Ubuntu:
sudo /etc/init.d/tor stop
Now do set the password (give anything of your choice) in Vidalia Advanced Setting section (Don’t leave it blank and uncheck Randomly Generate option, especially for Windows users). Leave remaining options as they are.
Now Start Tor By clicking on:
On successful connection from tor network you will see a similar options (Connected to the Tor network), as the image below.
Now all you need to do is to configure your web browser at http proxy of 127.0.0.1 with Port 8118.
Your browser will show different IP address than your original IP address. To switch between fake IP’s just click on Use a New Identity in Vidalia.
Installing Tor in Windows
Windows users can download and install everything in form of a bundled package which includes: Tor, Polipo, Tor Button, Vidalia and Firefox browser with required Add-ons). Download the complete package from here
After installing the package, follow the same steps of Using Vidalia from above.
Enjoy the freedom to surf anonymously without limits with Tor and Vidalia!
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https://svn.torproject.org/svn/torbrowser/trunk/build-scripts/config/polipo.conf is not in git so 404′s.
This guide is great, very concise. Thank you!
Thanks, would work nicely if http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org wasn’t blocked by my ISP
Tried 2 other mirrors and Https, no chance. The update runs everything except Tor
>>Failed to fetch http://tor.mirror.youam.de/torproject.org/dists/maverick/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz 403 Forbidden<<<
Any suggestions on how to get on Ubuntu/maverick or "secret" mirrors?
Thanks for the useful instructions.
“Delete all its content and replace it with the content of file Polipo.conf. (Extract and Copy the content from config file)”
For those nervous of downloading this config file you can get an ‘official’ version here:
https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-unix.html.en#polipo
or
https://www.oignon.net/docs/tor-doc-unix.html.en#polipo