How to Install Tor Browser on Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04
This post will guide you how to install and use Tor Browser on your Ubuntu Linux 16.04 or 18.04. How do I install and use Tor Browser for encrypting web traffic through the Tor network on Ubuntu system.
- What is Tor Browser?
- Installing Tor Browser with APT Repositories
- Installing Tor Browser Through Archive file
- Installing Tor Browser via PPA
- Updating Tor Browser
- Uninstalling Tor Browser
What is Tor Browser?
Tor Browser is free and open source software for enabling anonymous communication. it can be used to make all users look the same making it difficult for you to be fingerprinted based on your browser and device information.
Tor browser is to protect your onLine privacy, it routes your all web traffic through its own Tor network (a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world). It can prevent somebody to watch your connection data from learning what sites you have visited. It also can prevent the website you visit from learning your location.
When you use Tor Browser to access one website, all of contents you watched are encrypted and protected from Tor network.
Installing Tor Browser with APT Repositories
Tor Browser package is already available on the default Ubuntu APT repository, so you just need to open up Ubuntu terminal and execute the following apt command to install it:
$ sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher
Outputs:
devops@devops:~$ sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher
[sudo] password for devops:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
python-attr python-automat python-cairo python-click python-colorama python-constantly python-gobject-2 python-gtk2
python-hyperlink python-incremental python-lzma python-openssl python-pam python-parsley python-psutil python-pyasn1
python-pyasn1-modules python-serial python-service-identity python-twisted python-twisted-bin python-twisted-core
python-txsocksx python-zope.interface tor tor-geoipdb torsocks
Suggested packages:
python-attr-doc python-gobject-2-dbg python-gtk2-doc python-openssl-doc python-openssl-dbg python-pam-dbg
python-psutil-doc python-wxgtk3.0 | python-wxgtk python-twisted-bin-dbg python-tk python-glade2 python-qt3
python-wxgtk3.0 mixmaster tor-arm apparmor-utils obfs4proxy python-pygame
The following NEW packages will be installed:
python-attr python-automat python-cairo python-click python-colorama python-constantly python-gobject-2 python-gtk2
python-hyperlink python-incremental python-lzma python-openssl python-pam python-parsley python-psutil python-pyasn1
python-pyasn1-modules python-serial python-service-identity python-twisted python-twisted-bin python-twisted-core
python-txsocksx python-zope.interface tor tor-geoipdb torbrowser-launcher torsocks
0 upgraded, 28 newly installed, 0 to remove and 45 not upgraded.
Need to get 5,953 kB of archives.
After this operation, 34.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:25 http://mirrors.aliyun.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 python-txsocksx all 1.15.0.2-1 [17.1 kB]
Get:26 http://mirrors.aliyun.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 torbrowser-launcher amd64 0.2.9-2 [215 kB]
Get:27 http://mirrors.aliyun.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 torsocks amd64 2.2.0-2 [59.1 kB]
Get:28 http://mirrors.aliyun.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 tor-geoipdb all 0.3.2.10-1 [793 kB]
Fetched 5,953 kB in 3s (1,977 kB/s)
Setting up python-txsocksx (1.15.0.2-1) ...
Setting up torbrowser-launcher (0.2.9-2) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-20) ...
Once Tor Browser is intalled on your Ubuntu system, you can start it directly by executing the following command:
$ torbrowser-launcher
Installing Tor Browser Through Archive File
At the time of writing this post, the latest version of Tor Browser is 8.0.2. You can do the following steps to install Tor Browser with Archive package:
#1 You can download it from GitHub. Just type the following wget command:
$ sudo wget https://github.com/TheTorProject/gettorbrowser/releases/download/v8.0.2/tor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz
Outputs:
devops@ubuntu:~$ wget https://github.com/TheTorProject/gettorbrowser/releases/download/v8.0.2/tor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz --2019-04-25 07:08:37-- https://github.com/TheTorProject/gettorbrowser/releases/download/v8.0.2/tor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz Resolving github.com (github.com)... 52.74.223.119, 13.250.177.223, 13.229.188.59 Connecting to github.com (github.com)|52.74.223.119|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found Location: https://github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com/51808714/8bf0c080-d1ef-11e8-969a-64c6a6e30905?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWNJYAX4CSVEH53A%2F20190425%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190425T140839Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Signature=aaeb6852508fd320bc3381ef1f88ab4c95fc906c445aa77bff8bb88c5f76187b&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&actor_id=0&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dtor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz&response-content-type=application%2Foctet-stream [following] --2019-04-25 07:08:39-- https://github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com/51808714/8bf0c080-d1ef-11e8-969a-64c6a6e30905?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWNJYAX4CSVEH53A%2F20190425%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190425T140839Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Signature=aaeb6852508fd320bc3381ef1f88ab4c95fc906c445aa77bff8bb88c5f76187b&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&actor_id=0&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dtor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz&response-content-type=application%2Foctet-stream Resolving github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com (github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com)... 52.216.178.123 Connecting to github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com (github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com)|52.216.178.123|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 74913044 (71M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: ‘tor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz’ tor-bro 100%[=============================> ] 71M 41.4KB/s eta 2m 10s ......
#2 After Torbrowser-laucher package is downloaded, and you need to extract it with the following command:
$ tar xJpf tor-browser-linux64-8.0.2_en-US.tar.xz
#3 changing the current working directory to tor-browser_en-US, type:
$ cd torbrowser-launcher-0.3.1
#4 start tor browser with the following command:
$ ./start-tor-browser.desktop
#5 click Connect button to connect to a Tor network for the Tor Browser.
#6 wait while it will establish a connection to the Tor network. it may take several minutes.
#7 you can click Test Tor Network Settings link to peform Tor Browser test.
Installing Tor Browser via PPA
If you want to always have the latest version of the torbrowser-launcher package before your distribution gets it, you can use the below PPA to install it:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:micahflee/ppa $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install torbrowser-launcher
Updating Tor Browser
When a new version of Tor browser is released, you can update it through your Ubuntu Software Center or you can also run the following apt command to update it.type:
$ sudo apt udpate $ sudo apt upgrade
Uninstalling Tor Browser
If you want to uninstall Tor Browser from your Ubuntu system, you can use apt remove command to uninstall it, type:
$ sudo apt remove torbrowser-launcher
If Tor Browser is installed by Tor Archive package, you just need to delete those archive files directly.
Conclusion
You should know that how to install and use Tor Browser on your Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04 or Debian Linux.
