discuss: installing tor/polipo

[nadir]

mini-how to is here:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=960&p=9356#p9356

I can't find the quote right now, but if you need really strong anonymity tor does not provide it via magic.
If you need it you probably have got enough interest to read it yourself.
(short: don't do silly things cause you think you are protected).
I will add the quote as soon i find it.

[craigevil]

Just curious why polipo and not privoxy?

Does polipo work with vidalia?
Vidalia
Recommends: tor
Suggests: iceweasel-torbutton
Description: controller GUI for Tor
Vidalia offers a graphical user interface to start and stop Tor, view
its status at a glance, and monitor its bandwidth usage.
.
Vidalia also makes it easy to contribute to
the Tor network by helping you set up a Tor server.
.
Tor protects privacy in communications via a distributed network of
relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents anybody
watching Internet connections from learning what sites you visit,
and it prevents the visited sites from learning your physical
location. Tor works with web browsers, instant messaging programs,
remote login clients, and many other TCP-based applications.
Homepage: https://www.torproject.org/projects/vidalia

BTW tor-arm - terminal status monitor for tor
is nice to have especially if you have to watch your bandwidth usage

[nadir]

Just curious why polipo and not privoxy?

When i first tried tor, polipo was said to be faster
(while privoxy was said to do more, but it was all above me. I think i used both, but saw no difference in spee).
Now i simply picked it cause it was installed via dependency of tor.

polipo does work with vidalia, but if you first install polipo/tor and then vidalia it will complain about tor already running. As far i can say there are two solutions: a) first install vidalia or b) remove tor from starting during boot, say with sys5-rc-config.

The distro tails made me try it, tor, again. I downloaded it and tested it, and it is really fast now (like in: not slow).
Besides that i can't say that i know much about it. First time i tried it, it took a couple of days and a lot of headaches. It has become way more easy.

BTW tor-arm - terminal status monitor for tor

thanks, will try.

[craigevil]

In September 2007, Dan Egerstad, a Swedish security consultant, revealed that by operating and monitoring Tor exit nodes he had intercepted usernames and passwords for a large number of email accounts.[15] As Tor does not, and by design cannot, encrypt the traffic between an exit node and the target server, any exit node is in a position to capture any traffic passing through it which does not use end-to-end encryption, e.g. SSL. While this does not inherently violate the anonymity of the source, it affords added opportunities for data interception by self-selected third parties, greatly increasing the risk of exposure of sensitive data by users who are careless or who mistake Tor’s anonymity for security.

See http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11447

Linux Install tor and privoxy To Communicate Anonymously On the Internet - http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/debian-ubu ... -software/

Which is one of the reasons I like the HTTPS Everywhere extension, too bad most forums don't use HTTPS.

[Beewolf]

I remember reading that Polipo can have problems with some hidden services.

[Hallvor]

Switching proxy manually in the browser will not make the same effect as using Torbutton, and using Torbutton is highly recommended. Torbutton has a lot of extra features to enhance privacy that you will otherwise lose.

https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/
https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/to ... aq.html.en

As for polipo vs privoxy: The latter has given me a lot more timeouts for some reason.

[craigevil]

Create a user.js for Iceweasel/Firefox in the profile dir you plan on using Tor then add:

/* Tor/Privoxy*/
user_pref("network.http.keep-alive.timeout",600);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.keep-alive",true);

A couple of tweaks for privoxy:
TheOnionRouter/PrivoxyConfig – Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki - https://trac.torproject.org/projects/to ... voxyConfig

A nifty trick to be able to do things like use Hulu in EU or watch BBC programs in the US:
How To Get IP Of Your Choice To Bypass Country Specific Censorship | Megaleecher.Net - http://www.megaleecher.net/Get_Country_ ... c_Proxy_IP

TheOnionRouter/FireFoxTorPerf – Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki - https://trac.torproject.org/projects/to ... FoxTorPerf

Torbutton is a must have, without it you might as well not bother with using Tor.
Tor Project: Torbutton Options - https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/to ... ns.html.en

And one of the coolest things about running Tor the hidden onion services like duckduckgo:
DuckDuckGo - http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/

[julian67]

The easiest way to run tor has to be the Tor Browser Bundle, available for GNU/Linux i686 and x86_64. No install required, just unpack the downloaded archive and execute start-tor-browser. I tried it out on both 32-bit and 64-bit and it is really nice. Executing the script launches tor and a vidalia window. As soon as a connection is made to the tor network then a customised pre-configured version of Firefox is automatically launched. If you only need anonymised web browsing this is ideal. If you need to run other apps or services with tor then you need to do a normal install.

https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en

edit: correction: you can of course use the bundle's tor with other apps but those apps will not be pre-configured and if you close the custom browser then tor and polipo and vidalia all close as well, so it's not exactly convenient.

[julian67]

I tried tor with polipo and I've reverted to tor with privoxy. I couldn't detect any speed difference (no actual measurements, just using the archlinux "feeling, wishing and wanting" perceptual method). I found a couple of pages never rendered when proxied via polipo but they were OK via privoxy. I don't know enough about proxying, filtering and pipelining to know why this is or even begin to remedy it. I run privoxy and tor on one always-on machine on my LAN and that serves various clients. This is really easy to do with privoxy (quick edit of the listen address) but doing the same thing with polipo didn't seem to work. Maybe I got confused or did something dumb but anyway I'm back using privoxy and it's fine. It seems to me that tor network is quite a lot faster than it used to be and that there isn't the huge latency that used to be normal, so any speed advantage that polipo might have over privoxy has become much less important.

One thing about browser extensions: FoxyProxy for Firefox/Iceweasel is well worth looking at instead of torbutton. I don't want all my browsing proxied and I don't want to run two browsers. By using a simple whitelist I have various urls always passed to tor/privoxy automatically while regular browsing continues as normal. It's very easy.

[Beewolf]

Torbutton does a lot more than simply proxying through tor - you may want to consider using a separate Iceweasel profile.