After installing Tor and Privoxy, you need to configure your applications to use them. The first step is to set up web browsing.

If you're using Firefox (we recommend it), check out the Torbutton plugin that sets everything up for you. If you plan to run Firefox on a different computer than Tor, read our Tor SwitchProxy howto to set up a plugin that makes it easy to switch between using Tor and using a direct connection.

Otherwise, you need to manually configure your browser's proxy settings. In Mozilla and Firefox, this is in Edit|Preferences|Advanced|Proxies. In Opera 7.5x it's Tools|Preferences|Network|Proxy servers. In IE, it's Tools|Internet Options|Connections|LAN Settings|Advanced.


You should fill in "localhost" and "8118" to point the top four protocols to Privoxy, as shown here. (Even though Privoxy doesn't support FTP and Gopher, you should set them up anyway.) You should also fill out the socks proxy entry to point directly to Tor ("localhost", "9050", and socks5) to cover protocols besides the first four. Then click "OK".

Using Privoxy is necessary because browsers leak your DNS requests when they use a SOCKS proxy directly, which is bad for your anonymity. Privoxy also removes certain dangerous headers from your web requests, and blocks obnoxious ad sites like Doubleclick.

To Torify other applications that support HTTP proxies, just point them at Privoxy (that is, localhost port 8118). To use SOCKS directly (for instant messaging, Jabber, IRC, etc), you can point your application directly at Tor (localhost port 9050), but see this FAQ entry for why this may be dangerous. For applications that support neither SOCKS nor HTTP, take a look at SocksCap or FreeCap. (FreeCap is free software; SocksCap is proprietary.)

For information on how to Torify other applications, check out the Torify HOWTO