How to Setup Tor in Windows / Linux

What is Tor?

Tor is also known as a free and open-source program that allows users to communicate anonymously. It hides a user’s location and usage from anyone doing network surveillance or traffic analysis by routing Internet traffic over a free, international volunteer overlay network with over 6,000 relays [9]. Tor makes it more difficult to track down a user’s online behavior. Tor safeguards its users’ personal privacy, as well as their freedom and capacity to communicate in confidence, by preventing their Internet activity from being monitored.

Why should you use tor?

Your internet service provider, as well as anyone viewing your connection locally, will be unable to track your online activities, including the names and URLs of the websites you visit.

The operators of the websites and services you use, as well as anyone viewing them, will see a connection from the Tor network rather than your real Internet (IP) address, and will have no way of knowing who you are unless you specifically identify yourself.

How does Tor work?

Tor is a virtual tunneling network that allows you to improve your online privacy and security. Tor works by routing your traffic across three different Tor servers (also known as relays). The communication is subsequently sent out to the Internet thru the circuit’s final relay (the “exit relay”) to the public.

How to setup tor in Windows?

1. First of all, you have to download the Tor Browser Bundle and install it for windows.
   To download it, click here
2. Open the location where you have installed the tor browser and you will se the browser folder
3. Open Windows File Explorer and navigate to the directory in which you installed the Tor Browser in most of the cases its default location is C:\Tor Browser\

4. Click on the location bar at the tor folder and type cmd, it will open command prompt at the required location.

5. This will open the Windows CLI

Now enter the following command to instruct tor.exe to install a Windows Service:

C:\Users\User\Desktop\Tor Browser\Browser\TorBrowser\Tor> tor.exe –service install

That’s all; Tor is now operating as a service on Windows.

6. To see if the service has been installed, open the Windows Services snap-in by holding down the Windows Key while hitting R and typing services. msc:

7. Press “OK”

8. You can check it as if it is installed or not as shown in image below

You can now enable other apps to use the Tor service for anonymous internet connections (tunnel traffic through the Tor network).

How to set up Tor for Linux?

We all know that Tor is a browser that is used for browsing the web anonymously, but we also use the Nipe script to totally anonymize our PC. Nipe is a Perl script that turns the Tor network into a default gateway for any machine. Nipe is only compatible with Linux/Debian-based computers. We must first make sure that Perl is installed on ourmachine. .Before we can set up Nipe

To install Perl, execute the following command:

sudo apt-get install perl

To install the Nipe script, follow these steps: –

1. Cloning the GitHub repository

git clone https://github.com/GouveaHeitor/nipe

2. Opening the cloned directory

cd nipe

3. Execute the following command:

cpan install Switch JSON LWP::UserAgent

4. Run the install script:

perl nipe.pl install

Nipe script will successfully install after following the above procedure. To start the Nipe script, run the following command:

perl nipe.pl start

To check the status of nipe script, use the following command:

perl nipe.pl status

You can simply run the following code to stop the nipe script

perl nipe.pl stop

Use the following command to restart nipe script

perl nipe.pl restart

After you’ve finished running the Nipe script, check to see if your system’s default gateway is tor.
To check it, you can open this link.

That’s all for the installation of tor in linux.

————————————————————————————————————–

Most of you may be installing tor for accessing dark web. We highly recommend you to use the vpn because if you are not using the vpn. Otherwise, your address may be leaked into the dark web. So, you must use a good vpn to keep your privacy secure.

If this article have helped you setting up the tor in either windows or linux, consider visitng our website for any other tips and tricks for your upcoming tasks.

Thank you for reading.