Tor proxy software to Surf Anonymously .Installing Tor on Ubuntu.

Tor (from https://www.torproject.org) is a software project that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

GUI Tools Available for Tor

Currently we have the following TOR GUI Applications.

Vidalia

Vidalia is a cross-platform controller GUI for the Tor software, built using the Qt framework. Using Vidalia, you can start and stop the Tor software, view its status at a glance, and monitor bandwidth usage. Vidalia also makes it easy to contribute to the Tor network by helping you set up and manage your own relay.

Installing Tor on Ubuntu 11.10

1. Open Terminal and type following commands:

sudo apt-get install vidalia polipo tor

Tip:  Tor is a network of anonymising TCP proxies. In order to use tor to access the web, your web browser needs to go through a proxy that can speak to tor; this is usually Polipo.

2. Then add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

     

and add:

deb     http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main

Tip: you can figure out the name of your distribution by a little look over at sources.list file. It may be sid, wheezy, squeeze, karmic, lenny, natty, maverick, lucid, or oneric.

3. Now update and upgrade the package:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

4. Configure polipo proxy:

 type following command in terminal:

sudo nautilus

It will open Nautilus file manager with root privileges.

Now,  go to /etc/polipo directory and open file config by double clicking and selecting gedit or any other text editor, and add  following line:

socksParentProxy = "localhost:9050"
socksProxyType = socks5

proxyAddress = "127.0.0.1"
proxyPort = 8118

Tip:  you can simply Uncomment and modify the existing line starting with sock5proxy by removing #

5. Now to surf internet anonymously, configure following Network Setting in any Web Browser:

       Polipo Proxy IP address: 127.0.0.1, port 8118 
       (for all protocols except Socks)
Example: for mozilla FireFox:

 

Now, check your IP-Address  through www.whatismyip.com or www.ipchicken.com or any site you know.

6.  If you are accessing Internet through a proxy (HTTP or Socks), then you need to configure Tor for this:

type following command in terminal:
 

sudo nautilus

It will open Nautilus file manager with root privileges.
Now,  go to /etc/tor directory and open file torrc by double clicking and selecting gedit or any other text editor, and add following line: 

i.) for HTTP proxy running at IP address 192.168.1.1 listening at port 3128, add following: 

    
 HttpProxy 192.168.1.1:3128 

If you need to authenticate to the proxy for Internet access by providing username and password then add following lines also:

         HttpProxyAuthenticator yourusername:yourpassword

          

         ii). for Socks proxy running at IP address 192.168.1.1 listening at port 1080, add following:

Socks5Proxy 192.168.1.1:1080

Tips:

•  following commands might help in troubleshooting in case of service crash:

sudo /etc/init.d/tor restart
sudo /etc/init.d/polipo restart