TOR in Windows Vista Review

First published—14 April 2007.
Updated—07 January 2008.

Staying anonymous in Windows Vista

Vidalia & TOR

Introduction

Quoted directly from from the source:

"Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol.

Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves. "

Sounds good to you? It should. The software is free as well as using the network (onion routers) is. Besides, "as open source, Tor can’t have any backdoors, because there are thousands of programmers all over the world who look at the code and understand it."

Installation

It works very well under Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

Let's download the program first.

To make our life easier, the software bundle comprising all the needed components is ready for you here. I use the test version (Release Candidate) 0.1.2.12 which is currently available.

The bundle includes Tor itself, Privoxy (web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities) & Vidalia (cross-platform controller GUI for Tor). It is very easy to install and very easy to use.

Before installing the bundle, I recommend you install, if not done yet, FireFox 2, because it is very convenient to use with TOR.

Then, let's install:

Vidalia Install

Graphical User Interface

Once TOR is installed installed, you will notice new notification icons — green onion and blue ugly "P" sign:

Green onion is actually the main interface (GUI) and ugly "P" is Privoxy [screenshot], the web proxy server which is well-configured by default. In order to use TOR with Firefox 2 without much hustle I had to download and install the special Firefox plug in which is called "Torbutton" (the one included in the installation did not show up for some reason).[screenshot of plug in page]

Then run the Firefox. You will notice a small Tor button in the right, low corner. [screenshot]

Look at the screenshot. Tor is disabled in Firefox now. Google can see my Swiss location without hesitation. Let's now hit the button to activate TOR network for our browser. Here's the new screenshot. Google thinks now I'm in the US!

If you don't want to use Torbutton in Firefox, or you want to use IE7 or Opera for that purpose, then apply the following settings, as showed below:

tor browser configuration

This is a screen from Firefox connection settings, but if you want to use IE7, use the same settings: localhost: 8118 (Internet Options -> Connections -> Lan Settings -> Proxi server)

Exploring application

The application menu can be accessed by the right click on the onion notification icon.

tor menu

Network map is the most exciting [screenshot]. You can see the route of your secure connection as well as speed available. In the settings you can customize the program behavior. You also have a fancy traffic monitor:

bandwidth usage

And a funny message log [screenshot].

Trick with Rapidshare

Here's the promised trick with downloading via Rapidshare for free.

Once your free limit is up, you may run the TOR and try to download again. Unfortunately, odds are your new IP address has already been used (is being used) for downloading—well, nothing is perfect. Then you will need to update your identity, i.e. to get new IP. To do that click "New Identity" from the menu shown above. And try to download again.

new identity

Sad thing is you may need to try quite a few times to be successful. But for sure it will not take 90 minutes long.

The point is, if you desperately need something to download from Rapidshare for free without stupid time limitation/delay that is the way to go.

Advice & Conclusion

My conclusion is simple: Tor is a great free software everybody should try. And it works great under Windows Vista 32-bits.

To wrap this up, I will simply quote some wise advices from the TOR website.

An important reading!

"Want Tor to really work?...then please don't just install it and go on. You need to change some of your habits, and reconfigure your software! Tor by itself is NOT all you need to maintain your anonymity. There are several major pitfalls to watch out for. First, Tor only protects Internet applications that are configured to send their traffic through Tor — it doesn't magically anonymize all your traffic just because you install it. We recommend you use Firefox with the Torbutton extension. Second, browser plugins such as Java, Flash, ActiveX, RealPlayer, Quicktime, Adobe's PDF plugin, and others can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. You should probably uninstall your plugins (go to "about:plugins" to see what is installed), or investigate QuickJava, FlashBlock, and NoScript if you really need them. Consider removing extensions that look up more information about the websites you type in (like Google toolbar), as they may bypass Tor and/or broadcast sensitive information. Some people prefer using two browsers (one for Tor, one for unsafe browsing).

Third, beware of cookies: if you ever browse without Tor and Privoxy and a site gives you a cookie, that cookie could identify you even when you start using Tor again. You should clear your cookies frequently. CookieCuller can help protect any cookies you do not want to lose. Fourth, Tor anonymizes the origin of your traffic, and it encrypts everything inside the Tor network, but it can't encrypt your traffic between the Tor network and its final destination. If you are communicating sensitive information, you should use as much care as you would on the normal scary Internet — use SSL or other end-to-end encryption and authentication. Fifth, while Tor blocks attackers on your local network from discovering or influencing your destination, it opens new risks: malicious or misconfigured Tor exit nodes can send you the wrong page, or even send you embedded Java applets disguised as domains you trust.

Be smart and learn more. Understand what Tor does and does not offer. This list of pitfalls isn't complete, and we need your help identifying and documenting all the issues."

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