However, there’s one convenient solution that allows you to keep your web browsing private: Tor Browser. In this article, we explain what a Tor browser is and provide step-by-step instructions to help you get started with it.

Tor Browser Definition

Technically, a Tor browser is any web browser that allows you to connect to the Tor anonymity network, a free and open-source project whose goal is to enable anonymous communication.

However, there’s really only one Tor browser you need to know about, the official Tor Browser developed by The Tor Project, a research-education non-profit organization responsible for maintaining software for the Tor anonymity network.

The Tor Browser is based on Mozilla Firefox ESR, and it includes the Tor proxy, which facilitates the actual connection to the Tor network, as well as the TorButton, TorLauncher, NoScript, and HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extensions.

The goal of the Tor Browser is to provide a bullet-proof solution for routing traffic through the Tor network, one that doesn’t give users much chance to accidentally deanonymize themselves by making a mistake during installation or configuration.

Users can simply launch the Tor Browser just like they would launch any other web browser, wait for it to automatically start Tor background processes, and enjoy private web browsing.

ELI5: How Does the Tor Browser Work?

When you enter a website URL in a regular web browser, the browser finds the corresponding IP address and establishes a connection with the server hosting the website you want to visit.

Because the server is most likely hundreds or even thousands of miles away, data packets must pass through multiple routers during their journey, including routers belonging to your internet service provider.

In many cases, data packets hop from router to router unencrypted, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable to surveillance. Depending on what you do on the web, a malicious third party could discover your real identity, obtain private information, and even track your personal messages—all without you knowing about it.

The Tor Browser anonymizes web traffic by passing it through a layered (like an onion—hence the logo) network of nodes until it reaches the last node in the chain, the so-called exit node. From the point of view third-party observers, all traffic seems to be coming directly from the exit node even though it originates somewhere else.

That’s why the users of the Tor Browser often appear to be located in a completely different part of the world than they actually are.

Is the Tor Browser Safe and Legal?

The Tor Browser is open-source software developed by a non-profit organization whose chief goal is to fight for people everywhere to have private access to an uncensored internet, states its crowdfunding page.

The developers of the Tor Browser go to considerable lengths to make Tor Browser as safe as possible, but despite their best efforts, some vulnerabilities have been found in the past. Such vulnerabilities are virtually always patched within 24 hours, making their real-world impact fairly insignificant.

As far as Tor Browser’s legal status goes, the answer is crystal-clear: the Tor Browser is legal and free to download and use. What’s not legal, however, are some of the services accessible through the Tor network, many of which have been used to represent the dark web by mainstream media.

To stay safe and avoid breaking any laws while using the Tor Browser, all you need to do is keep it updated and avoid services that revolve around illegal activities, such as drug trade.

How to Install the Tor Browser on Linux?

Because the Tor Browser is based on Mozilla Firefox, it runs flawlessly on all popular Linux distributions. To install it:

1. Go to the Tor project download page and click the Linux icon to download the Tor Browser for Linux.
2. Extract the content of the downloaded file.
3. Open the terminal and navigate to the extracted folder and go the directory called Browser.
4. Launch the Tor Browser using the following command: ./start-tor-browser
5. Select the Connect option.

Even if your distribution has the Tor Browser in its software repositories, we still recommend you install it by following the instructions above to keep its footprint on your system as small as possible.

How to Use the Tor Browser?

Most users can simply launch the Tor Browser and instantly start using it just like a regular web browser.

For example, you can use the Tor Browser to visit What Is My IP Address. The IP address displayed on the website should be different from your real IP address, which is how you can tell that the Tor Browser is doing what it’s supposed to do: hide your real identity.

Because the Tor Browser is encrypting your traffic and routing it through multiple nodes, you can’t expect the same speeds and latency as you would get with a regular web browser, making more bandwidth-intensive tasks, such as video streaming, painful at best.

In addition to anonymously accessing regular websites, the Tor Browser can be used to access .onion services, which are basically hidden websites reachable only via the Tor network. Wikipedia maintains a fairly comprehensive list of .onion services, and you can use it to start exploring the dark web. Just be careful what you click on because not all .onion services are legal.

Conclusion

Privacy and anonymity are quickly becoming rare commodities on the internet, which makes tools like the Tor Browser that much more important. Without requiring you to pay a monthly subscription fee, the Tor Browser can help you defend yourself against tracking and surveillance so you can explore the web freely and without any limitations.

Introduction to TOR and .onion

What is TOR For?

That is the first question that comes to mind. The Onion Router (aka TOR) is a tool that allows you to stay somewhat anonymous while using the internet. You might ask yourself, I did nothing wrong or illegal, why do I need to stay anonymous? That’s a very good question.

The Internet is global and is not a subject to any one country’s regulations. Even if you are not doing anything that your government would consider illegal there is still pretty good chance that your activities are going to upset someone. Imagine this, one day you log into your account and discover that it has been hacked (through no fault of your own) and used to make posts that are directly opposite (not to mention extremely offensive) of what you believe in. You check your email and it is full of “hate mail” from your now former fans.  While the damage might not be irreparable, do you also want to worry about the attackers actually knowing you real-world identity and where you live? Do you want them contacting your employer, your landlord and your real life friends with the links to the horrible things they put online while pretending to be you? Need I continue?

And that is why you would be wise to stay anonymous online and learn to use tools that facilitate it (including TOR).

How TOR Works.

The core ideas behind TOR are: it channels your communication through a number (at least 3) of relays. Each relay has its own layer of encryption. So, even if a relay (except for an exit node, more on that later) gets compromised, there is no easy way to know what your final destination is or where you are coming from because everything (except the information about next relay) is encrypted.

In fact, each relay uses a separate layer (like onion) of encryption. When the TOR client sends the data it is first encrypted so that only the exit node can decrypt it. It adds some metadata to it and then encrypts it again with a different key. The step is repeated for every relay in the circuit. Check out this post for more details on how TOR works.

The Bad Exit

You might ask yourself: it is all well and good that TOR still keeps you safe even if some of the intermediate nodes have been compromised. What happens if it is the exit (the one that connects to your final destination) node? Short answer: nothing good (for you). That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are ways to mitigate the threat. The community is identifying and reporting (they get flagged with BadExit flag) bad exit nodes (see this for up to date list) on a regular basis and you can take some measures to protect yourself as well.

It is hard to go wrong with using HTTPS. Even if the exit node is controlled by the attacker they don’t actually know your IP address! TOR is designed in such a way that each node only knows the IP address of a previous node but not the origin. One way they can figure out who you are is by analyzing contents of and modifying (injecting JavaScripts is a fairly common tactic) your traffic. Of course, you have to rely on your destination site to actually keep their TLS (check out this article for more details) up to date and even then you might not be safe depending on the implementation. But, at least using encryption will make it *lot* more expensive if not impractical for the would-be attackers. This fun interactive online tool can help you see how the TOR and HTTPS fit together.

By the same token, it is also a good idea to use a VPN — preferably the one that does not keep more logs then necessary (IPVanish is pretty good). This way, even if your encryption was cracked and your origin IP was tracked down, the attackers still don’t have much to work with. Besides, with the net neutrality, it is a good idea to obscure your online activities from your ISP. Unless you like your internet access being throttled and the data about your online habits being sold to the highest bidder, of course.

Use .onion And Disable JavaScript

There are more measures you can take to stay safe. One thing you can do is check if your website (quite a few do, including DuckDuckGo search engine) has .onion service and use that if it does. What that means: the website itself is also the exit node. This makes life lot harder for the would-be attackers as the only way they can control the exit node is by controlling the service itself. Even then, they still won’t know easily know your IP address.

One way they can find out your IP address is by injecting a certain JavaScript into the response. It is highly recommended that you disable JavaScript in your TOR browser for that reason. You can always enable them for an specific site if need be.

TOR Helps Everyone Stay Safe

They say: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Even if you did not do anything wrong, you could still be targeted by someone. Your data can also be used for questionable things (such as identity theft) without your knowledge — why should you let everyone see it?

Besides if you use TOR you create more traffic for the “bad guys” to analyze and make their life more difficult in general thus helping everyone else to stay safe. Keep calm and use open source.

Works Cited

“How HTTPS and Tor Work Together to Protect Your Anonymity and Privacy.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 6 July 2017
“How Tor Works: Part One · Jordan Wright.” Jordan Wright, 27 Feb. 2015
“Net Neutrality.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Dec. 2017
Project, Inc. The Tor. “Tor.” Tor Project | Privacy Online
TLS vs SSL, Linux Hint, 8 Dec. 2017 ]]> https://linuxhint.com/install-tor-browser-on-linux-mint-ubuntu/ https://linuxhint.com/install-tor-browser-on-linux-mint-ubuntu/#respond Sat, 10 Jun 2017 01:19:59 +0000 http://sysads.co.uk/?p=16969

Privacy is the biggest concern nowadays. Tor browser is on priority for those users who want to preserve their privacy and want to remain anonymous on the web. By routing all your traffic via the tor network, the Tor browser protects your privacy.

This article briefly describes all the steps to install the Tor browser on Ubuntu and Linux Mint system.

Step 1: Add the tor browser launcher PPA repository

The latest version of Tor Browser is not directly available from the Ubuntu, and Linux Mint repositories. The latest version of the Tor Browser can be downloaded and installed on Ubuntu and Linux Mint through the Tor browser launcher script.

We will be needing a launcher script to ensure the installation of the Tor browser and for that, we need to add a PPA repository:

Step 2: Update Repository

After successfully adding PPA, now you want to update your repository:

Step 3: Install Tor browser launcher

Now we are ready to install the Tor browser launcher from the repository:

Step 4: Launch Tor browser launcher

Once the Tor browser launcher is downloaded and installed successfully, you can either use the command line or the application menu to launch the tor browser launcher.

To start the Tor browser launcher from the command line, run the following command:

To start the tor browser launcher from the application menu, click on the application icon and search “Tor browser launcher”.

Step 5: Download and install the Tor browser-related dependencies

To download and install the Tor browser-related dependencies, open the Tor browser launcher.

Click on “Install Tor Browser” and it will download and install all the related dependencies automatically.

Uninstalling Tor browser

At any point, if you want to uninstall the Tor browser, run the following command to do so:

The above-given command will uninstall the Tor browser successfully.

Conclusion

This article briefly explained how to install Tor browser on Ubuntu 20.04 and Linux Mint 20. We used Linux Mint 20 to prepare this guide and execute the commands.