A lot of time has passed. And the situation in RuNet with government regulation has only worsened. Many sites are blocked en masse for a variety of reasons and even simply “by mistake” (because they were on the same IP with “suspicious sites”). Therefore, various types have become more in demand than ever. Interest in . After our last article, readers began to receive questions about help setting up Tor.
Questions of this nature:
1) How to work through Tor using any Internet browsers (not just a special Tor browser)?
2) How to torify any applications (for example, Skype, ICQ, etc.)
3) What should I do if my Internet Service Provider (ISP) blocks access to Tor?
We will try to answer all these questions using clear examples. To torify all (or almost all of our Internet traffic) a standard package is not suitable for us Tor Brouser Bundle which is unpacked onto your desktop or flash drive and includes already configured Tor and a special browser.
We need to install the "stationary version" on the operating system, this is the package Vidalia-bundle(it includes: Vidalia, Tor).
We install it on the system (see our article), then upon first launch we will immediately set the settings for work:
Fig.1. Tor Settings- "Exchange2
Fig.2. Tor Settings - "Network"
1) Now we begin to configure our working browsers for anonymous work viaTor.
Setting it upInternetExplorer:
In Windows 7, to do this, go to the options “Control Panel - Network and Internet - Internet Options - Connections - Network settings - Settings settings local network", put a tick in the box "Proxy server" open a tab "Additionally", we'll put it there clause 4. Socks: 127.0.0.1:9050
See screenshots (3,4,5).
Rice. 4. Proxy server
Fig.5. Socks5
That's it, our IE works through Tor.
Setting it up Google Chrome:
Google Chrome should be the "default browser" on your operating system. Then see fig. 6:
Rice. 6. Proxy server settings
After you click on the button “Change procti server settings” You will see the already familiar Internet browser settings tabs. See screenshots (3,4,5). If you completed the previous step correctly ( Setting it up Internet Explorer ), then Google Chrome also works for you through the Tor network.
Setting up the browserOpera:
To do this, go to the point “Settings – Advanced – Network – Proxy servers.”
Check the box Socks: (and enter the following data there) 127.0.0.1:9050
See screenshots 7 and 8.
Setting up the browser Mozilla Firefox :
For this we need Foxy Proxy Basic plugin, which we will install in the section "Extensions", see fig. 9:
Then, when the plugin is installed, select the mode "Tor proxy for all addresses"(see Fig. 10)
Rice. 10. Select Tor for all addresses
and set up the settings as in Fig. eleven
That’s it, now there will be no more “forbidden sites” for you...
You can check your “new” IP address through the website http://2ip.ru
When you work through the Tor network, your address will be different from the one you received from your ISP.
2) Let's torifySkype,ICQ,µTorrent:
To toriff Skype, go to “Settings – Connections”, select the SOCKS5 tab, enter 127.0.0.1:9050
See fig. 12:
The same settings must be made for ICQ.
For torrent client µTorrent:
Let's go to "Settings - Connections" and set the settings as in screenshot 13:
That's it, you can safely work with torrents.
3) Well, the most difficult question. What to do if your Internet provider (ISP) blocks access toTor?
But for this case we downloaded the distribution kit Vidalia Bridge Bundle (for Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP), This is a package for accessing the Tor network through a so-called "bridge".
See screenshot 14:
Let's briefly explain how it all works.
What does the term “bridge type repeaters” mean?
Some internet service providers attempt to prevent users from accessing the Tor network by blocking connections to known Tor relays. Bridge relays (or bridges for short) help such blocked users gain access to the Tor network. Unlike other Tor relays, bridges are not listed in public directories as regular relays. Since there is no complete public list, even if your ISP filters connections to all known Tor relays, it is unlikely that it will be able to block all bridges.
How to find bridge type repeaters?
There are two main ways to find out the address of bridges:
A) Ask friends to organize private bridges for you;
B) Use public bridges.
To use private bridges, ask friends to launch Vidalia and Tor from an unblocked area of the Internet and click "Help Blocked Users" in the Vidalia "Relay Setup Page". They should then send you the “Bridge Address” (the line at the bottom of their relay page).
Unlike the operation of a regular relay, a relay in bridge mode simply transmits and receives data from the Tor network, so you should not complain about any violations to the operator.
You can find public addresses for bridges by visiting https://bridges.torproject.org. The answers on this page change every few days, so check back periodically if you need more bridge addresses. Another way to find public bridge addresses is to send an email to [email protected]
You can turn your computer into a web proxy for other devices on your local network. Tor is suitable for hiding the real IP address. That is, in the settings of other devices you will need to specify your computer data as a proxy, and all devices that access the Internet through your proxy will mask their IP.
In this case, the computer from which the proxy is made can be used in normal mode. You can configure it so that other programs (web browser, for example) will also use a proxy to access the network, or access the Internet directly.
Alternatives
Obviously, for this to work, the computer acting as the proxy must be turned on at all times. And this, at a minimum, means electricity costs. As an alternative, we recommend using routers that have built-in Tor support. An example of such routers are Asus series RT-AC* with firmware Asuswrt-Merlin.
The screenshot shows an already outdated RT-N66U:
In such routers, it is enough to enable Tor and choose whether to use a connection through the Tor network for all devices, or only for certain ones.
It's really convenient. And if you need the function of redirecting traffic of all devices on the local network via Tor, but do not need additional functions proxy server (traffic filtering, for example), then I recommend thinking about buying such an advanced router.
Another alternative to a proxy on Windows is a proxy on Linux. Although, this is probably a matter of personal preference.
Static IP in Windows and installing the Tor service
You need to make sure that the computer's IP does not change. You can read about how to make a permanent IP in Windows in the article “” - there is a lot of theory there and it describes in detail how to set up a static local IP for the system. If you do not configure a permanent local IP, then our “stone flower”, i.e. our proxy, after changing the IP address, will turn into a pumpkin.
Of course, you need to install the Tor service. How to do this is described in the article "". It's easy enough to install and run - no other steps are necessary.
Initial data
I will show with a specific example. However, my local IP 192.168.0.49 , and the Tor service is running on its standard port 9050 . If you set up a proxy with me, then in subsequent commands/settings replace 192.168.0.49 with your local IP. Also, if you have changed the default Tor port, then replace 9050 in the following examples with your port. By the way, how to change the Tor port is described in.
Web proxy and SOCKS are not the same thing!
SOCKS by its function is also a proxy. But what distinguishes it from a web proxy is that it is a different technology, with a different implementation and slightly different functions.
The most important practical conclusion: if a device or application works only with a web proxy, then in its settings you can't just specify the Tor port- this will not work, because web proxy and SOCKS are different things.
SOCKS is one of the application protocols; other examples of application protocols are: HTTP, FTP, SMTP, RDP, SNMP, DHCP.
Unlike HTTP proxy servers, SOCKS transfers all the data from the client without adding anything from itself, that is, from the point of view of the end server, the data it receives from the SOCKS proxy is identical to the data that the client would transfer directly, without proxying . SOCKS is more universal, it does not depend on specific application layer protocols (layer 7 of the OSI model) and operates at the level of TCP connections (layer 4 of the OSI model). But the HTTP proxy caches data and can more carefully filter the content of the transmitted data.
Web proxies and SOCKS are like HDMI and VGA - they have similar functions, but nevertheless you cannot just plug a VGA cable into an HDMI socket - you need an adapter.
Same with Tor. If the application you are using supports SOCKS, then it can connect directly to Tor. If not, then you need to install an “adapter” program.
Such a program, for example, is Privoxy.
Installing and running Privoxy on Windows
Please note that the proxy is used by the browser and may not be used by other applications. Some applications have their own proxy settings - check them.
Setting up a proxy in Windows
Go to " Options", start writing " proxy" and select " Changing proxy server settings manually»:
Turn on " Use a proxy server", enter the IP and port, check the box " Do not use a proxy server for local (internal) addresses»:
Save your settings. Check in your browser https://suip.biz/ru/?act=myip:
And in other programs, for example, in command line Windows:
Curl suip.biz/ip/
Setting up a proxy on Linux
In Linux, proxy settings can be changed different ways. For example, this can be done for individual applications or for the entire system; in the GUI or command line.
If you are using GUI then go Options-> Net. Click the gear where " Network proxy»:
Move the switch to " Manually" and enter your details:
For all IPs, enter the address of the computer where the proxy is running. As a port for HTTPS, HTTP, FTP enter the Privoxy port, and for Socks enter the Tor port (default is 9050 unless you change it).
After this, both web browsers and console utilities will use proxy settings. But be careful with programs like Nmap, Masscan - they send raw packets without system calls, - simply put, they do not use proxy settings.
Option without GUI , enter the commands into the console:
In them, replace 192.168.0.49 with the IP of your proxy, and ports 8118 and 9050 with the Privoxy and Tor port, respectively.
These settings are saved only until you reboot!
To ensure that the settings are permanent and work after restarting the computer, add to the file /etc/bash.bashrc add these same lines (again, replace the IP and port numbers):
Export all_proxy="socks://192.168.0.49:9050/" export http_proxy="http://192.168.0.49:8118/" export https_proxy="http://192.168.0.49:8118/" export no_proxy="localhost ,127.0.0.1,::1,192.168.1.1,192.168.0.1"
Save the file.
Configuring the use of proxies by VirtualBox virtual machines
Be careful when setting up virtual machines! In the menu item " File» -> « Settings"there is a tab " Proxy" Be aware that this setting only works while VirtualBox is checking for and downloading updates.
For virtual machines you need to configure the proxy individually internally operating system each of them.
System-wide host machine proxy settings will not necessarily work for virtual machine, since it uses its own drivers and virtual network interfaces.
For a long time I didn’t feel the need to bypass the great and terrible registry of blocked sites, but now trouble has come to me - my favorite provider has cut the hell out of Lostfilm. On this occasion, today I will tell you how to set up Tor as a proxy and use it in conjunction with Chrome (the choice of browser is not important).
I will look at two cases and start with the simpler and more ordinary one.
Setting up a proxy on a local Windows computer
If we just have a computer with Windows, then first of all we go here: https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en, expand the section Microsoft Windows and download Vidalia Relay Bundle. After installation and launch, the following window will appear:
Uncheck the box Show this window on startup, then press the button Settings and go to the tab Sharing:
Select an option Run as client only, if we don’t want to pass other people’s traffic through ourselves to increase the overall speed of the tor network. OK
In the main window, click Hide to minimize the program to tray. When you restart Windows, Thor starts automatically. Let's move on to setting up the browser.
Setting up a browser using Google Chrome as an example
Go to settings:
On the first tab, enter the proxy name, for example Local Tor:
On the second tab enter:
Host IP Address: 127.0.0.1
SOCKS Proxy: check the box
SOCKS v4/v4a: select
Let's go to the third tab, here we will add sites that need to be accessed through a proxy.
Click Add new pattern. Let's add lostfilm.
Pattern name: LostLilm
URL pattern: *lostfilm.tv*
(Ordinary masks are used for patterns, so recording *lostfilm.tv* means all links in which the site address appears.)
Click Save in the pattern editing window, then again in the window Proxy Settings. Now except Default Proxy we have ours - Local Tor.
Now, when you try to access Lostfilm, foxyproxy will automatically force the browser to use our tor and we are no longer afraid of any registry.
In order to add other sites, you need to edit the created proxy - Local Tor by going to the third tab and adding new pattern.
Setting up TOR on a separate computer to proxy several home computers
This part is not for everyone, but since I have 2 computers at home and a free nettop, I decided - why not use the latter as a proxy? I deployed a virtualization platform on it, inside which I made a virtual machine, but this is not at all important - we will assume that it is just a separate computer.
First of all, I downloaded Ubuntu 14.04 there in a minimal server configuration. Next I installed the torus and additional proxies:
apt- get install tor tor- geoipdb privoxy
I backup the proxy config and create a new one
mv / etc/ privoxy/ config / etc/ privoxy/ config. backup vi /etc/privoxy/config
I write in the config: |
Restarting the proxy
/etc/init. d/privoxy restart
Done, now all that remains is to configure the browser. The setting is identical to that already described, the only difference is the setting of the proxy itself.
The Tor browser is one of the best life-saving tools in our Orwellian world. Have you ever wondered why you receive offers in your email that you Googled earlier? Why does the advertising on websites appear exactly the one you needed? The fact is that modern browsers save your request history and, accordingly, your user preferences. That is, any advertising network already knows what you want - it is the request history that helps it with this.
Well, let’s not forget about scammers or the government - although these are different “structures,” they still have the same goal: to find the “weak” link, identify personal information about you and use it for their own purposes.
If you're tired of this total surveillance, if you want to surf sites on the Internet in complete anonymity, then you need to use Tor browser, and also purchase a couple of proxy servers. Anyway, let's talk about it.
Tor browser - what is it?
The Tor browser is a unique browser that supports proxy server technology. In general, every browser supports such technology, but it is here that the user visits sites and downloads in complete anonymity.
This is achieved by a huge network of encrypted communication nodes. Typically, there are three nodes registered at different locations. In fact, even the authors of Tor do not know which communication nodes this or that client uses, since each time a new IP address is used.
From a security point of view, this browser really provides complete and multifunctional protection. With it you can:
- create websites without advertising your (and their) location;
- download files, surf websites without leaving any traces;
- use electronic payment systems without the risk of hacking and theft of your personal data;
- access sites that are blocked in your country.
Why do we need proxies for Tor?
So, we found out that Tor is an excellent and wonderful tool that gives us complete anonymity through its own proxy servers. However, there are a couple of problems here: 1 – low speed, 2 – blocking by the site administration.
The first is due to the fact that too much load is placed on the general network of servers. Just try installing some VPN in your browser. Immediately after you go to YouTube, for example, you will feel the difference - the video will slow down ungodly. All this is due to the extended communication channel: your PC needs to send a signal to some Dutch server and receive a response, and this will take a lot of time.
The second problem is due to the popularity of the program; nevertheless, not only you and I know about the Torah. The administration of many sites simply blocks those visitors who use this browser.
In general, Thor is certainly suitable for our studies, but these two problems are quite serious. How to solve them? That's right - by purchasing your own proxy servers.
We can purchase, for example, Russian IP addresses, put them in the browser and enjoy comfortable work. You might think that there is no point in the Torah in this case, but, firstly, it is an incredibly convenient browser that is an improved Firefox version, and, secondly, with the help of separate proxies you can conduct safe work on the network, hiding behind someone else's IP. At the same time, you will not experience any need for additional speed.
What proxies are suitable for this browser?
In fact, any. You can use HTTP or SOCKS protocols - you can purchase IPv4 browsers and install them in the program settings.
Download Tor Browser only from the official website torproject.org.
Be careful! There are sites that imitate the Tor project site. For example, the website torprojectS.org (with an S added at the end) is trying to install a Trojan on your computer. DO NOT download Tor Browser from third party sites.
By the way, Tor Browser is based on Mozilla browser Firefox, since it is the only browser that can independently work with a Socks connection without the participation of the operating system.
After Tor installations Browser is completely ready to work. Below is a screenshot from the official website.
- do not install additional plugins, as there is a possibility of installing a plugin that will give out your real location. All necessary plugins for anonymity are already installed.
- Do not open documents (such as PDF and DOC) downloaded in the Tor Browser while you are online. Such files may have macros embedded that will request Internet access directly through the program, bypassing the Tor network. This will compromise your real IP address.
- Do not download torrents on the Tor network, as this will increase the load on the network. Torrent programs are designed in such a way that they always access the Internet directly and do not take into account proxy settings. This may compromise your real IP address.
- always use https connection. This connection will ensure the security of data transfer.
For security settings, click Security Settings.
Set the security level:
- Low (default) – standard security level.
- Medium – Javascript is blocked on sites that do not support https. HTML5 video and audio launched with a click via the NoScript plugin
- High – Javascript is blocked on all websites. HTML5 video and audio are launched with a click through the NoScript plugin. Some types of pictures, fonts and icons are prohibited from downloading
Suitable for most users. Websites open correctly and nothing is blocked.
Since most of the websites use Javascript, therefore browsing websites in High mode is problematic as some of the content is hidden. We recommend this mode when you need to read an article on a website, but you do not need to log in to the site.
Tor Browser is ready to use and you can immediately start surfing anonymously.
Remember that with this setup, only the Tor Browser uses the Tor network. All other programs use a direct connection to the Internet and transmit your real IP address.
What to do with programs that cannot work directly with the Socks protocol? For example, email clients, other browsers, instant messaging programs, etc. We recommend using Proxifier to redirect traffic from such programs to the Tor network.
Setting up Proxifier via the Tor network
The Proxifier program can:
- redirect traffic from all operating system programs through a proxy (including email clients, all browsers, instant messaging programs)
- create proxy chains
- use DNS server from a proxy, hiding the real DNS of the ISP
- supports http and socks proxy
Home page of the official Proxifier website.
Install the Proxifier program. This program can collect all operating system traffic and pass it through a specific proxy server.
To configure Proxifier, you need to know the Tor network port being used. Go to the Preferences section of the Tor Browser.
Select the Network Settings section.
Look at the used local IP address and connection port of the Tor network. This data must be inserted into the Proxifier program so that all operating system traffic passes through the Tor network. In our example, 127.0.0.1 and port 9150.
Launch the Proxifier program.
ATTENTION! It is important to first launch Tor Browser and wait until the main window appears. And only after that launch the Proxifier program.
Click on the Proxies button.
Click the Add button.
Enter the IP address and port. In our example: 127.0.0.1 and port 9150.
Select Yes - you agree to use this proxy by default.
Open any browser or email program. In Proxifier you will see a list of connections via the Tor network. In any browser, you can check your IP address and make sure that the IP address from the Tor network will be displayed, and not your real IP address.
If something does not work, then close Tor Browser and Proxifier. And then launch Tor Browser and wait for the main window to appear. Only then run Proxifier. None additional settings no need to do it. All traffic will automatically go through the Tor network. Close Proxifier to get your real IP address back.