Ade Malsasa Akbar contact
Senior author, Open Source enthusiast.
Monday, May 14, 2018 at 14:55

Accompanying the previous posts (1)(2), here's how to install and configure Tor on Ubuntu 18.04. You will connect your Firefox browser with it. And for convenience, you can add Proxy Switcher and Manager to make changing proxy as easy as one click on Firefox. This way you have strong privacy protection of your browsing activities, without any ISP/third-party could read, hijack, disturb, or deny your internet connection.

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Read also how to install 18.04, what to do after installing, and the download links.

1. Install Tor


Tor itself is actually a small program (+/-2MB total) to be installed with this command:
sudo apt-get install tor

The installation process

Once Tor Installed...


It runs automatically in the background. You can see it running by this command:
ps aux | grep tor

See the /usr/bin/tor, that's Tor


2. Setup Firefox's Proxy


Go to Firefox > Edit > Preferences > scroll down to Network Proxy section > press Settings > give check to Manual proxy > enter the address 127.0.0.1 and the port 9050 on the SOCKS section > give check to SOCKS v5 > let the No proxy section out > give check to Proxy DNS when using SOCKS > OK. See example below.



3. Check


Now visit the checker address https://check.torproject.org and you should see the message Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor. there. If it does, then you're successfully connected to the internet via Tor.


But if your configuration is incorrect, you should see the message Sorry. You are not using Tor. instead. This means you should re-check your configuration.



Bonus


To make everything easier, to help you switch between Tor proxy & no proxy, use Proxy Switcher and Manager by Richard Neomy. See picture below about how to fill the blanks. Press the check mark button to save your proxy setting.

How to use Proxy Switcher



This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.