How to install Tor Browser on Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, RHEL, Fedora, CentOS)

Tor browser let us to browse the internet anonymously , it conceals the user identity & physical location by encyrpting the traffic & randomly bouncing it across a network of relays, which are run by volunteers from around the world.

Tor Browser is based on modified Mozilla Firefox ESR web browser, the TorButton, TorLauncher, NoScript, and HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extensions and the Tor proxy. It can be used from a Windows machine, Linux or Mac machine. Apps are also available for mobile devices.

In this tutorial, we will learn to install Tor Browser on various Linux operating systems, starting with Ubutu & Linux Mint…

(Also read : Complete guide for creating Vagrant boxes with VirtualBox)

Install Tor browser

Ubuntu & Mint

Process for installing tor browser is same on both Ubuntu & Linux Mint. We need to add a repository on the system & than use it to install Tor browser. To add the repository, open terminal & execute the following command,

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/tor-browser

Next, run update & install the browser,

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install tor-browser

After the command completes, we will have tor browser installed on our machines. We can than open the browser either from menu or from terminal with the following command,

$ tor-browser-en.sh

Configurations to use Tor-browser are mentioned below.

CentOS/Fedora/RHELX

Installation of Tor Browser on CentOS/Fedora/RHEL, requires us to compile the browser from source. First download the source file with the following command,

$ wget https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/8.0.3/tor-browser-linux32-8.0.3_en-US.tar.xz

Next, extract it,

$ tar -xvJf tor-browser-linux64-7.0.8_en-US.tar.xz

Enter the extracted folder,
$ cd tor-browser_en-US

Now start the Tor browser using,

$ ./start-tor-browser.desktop

Remember, you need to this as local user & not as root user. Now let’s start with Tor Browser configurations.

Configuring Tor Browser

As soon as you start the browser, you will be presented with the following screen,

In most of the situations , you can simply press on ‘Connect’ & than can enjoy the anonymity offered by tor network. But if that does not work for you & you have some network restrictions, than click to ‘Configure’.

On next screen select ‘No’ & than ‘Next’ if you ISP has not placed any blocks, you will than be forwarded to ‘Local Proxy’ config screen or press ‘Yes’ & ‘Next’ to configure the ‘Tor Bridges’, if ISP has placed some blocks on the network,

So to configure the bridge, you can use one of the available from the menu or you can provide me a custom one. Once done, press ‘Next’

If you have a local proxy configured on your network, configure it by selecting ‘Yes’ & ‘Next’ on the following screen or if no proxy is configured, select ‘No’ & press ‘Connect’

Once connected we can than use the tor browser to access the internet anonymously.

This completes our tutorial on how to install Tor Browser , we will also discuss about Tor network & how we can use it to secure communications on various applications like chat & email etc , in our future tutorials.
You can send in your queries or questions using the comment box below. ADIOS !!!