Free Biz Ware

Tor is one of those application that you most likely don’t need but useful to know that it exist when you need it.

Tor’s website describe it as “an anonymous Internet communication system“. Which doesn’t really helps to understand what it is.

The normal business user would not need to know how Tor works (read this overview if you want to know), only what it does.

One of Tor usage is to get pass blocked website. Which is what I am going to describe in this article.

If you work in some countries (no name here to protect this site) that filters web traffic you may want to read on.

If you are on Windows platform you would want to download the Tor & Privoxy & Vidalia bundle.

Tor has comes a long way since the day when user need to hand configure everything. Tor actually need to be used together with Privoxy to get pass web filter. But now the Viadlia does the configuration and Privoxy is bundled together. Just download and the setup does everything.

After setup you should have 2 icons on the notification area.

• Right click on Tor and select Start if not already started
• Right click on Privoxy and select Enable

Next to configure your web browser.

Firefox

• From the menu select
  Tools > Options … > Connection Settings …

• Select Manual proxy configuration:
• Enter localhost for HTTP Proxy
• Enter 8118 for Port
• Check Use this proxy server for all protocols
• Click OK

Internet Explorer

• From the menu select
  Tools > Internet Options … > Connections > LAN Settings …

• Check Use a proxy server for your LAN
• Click Advanced…
• Enter localhost for Proxy address to use
• Enter 8118 for Port
• Check Use the same proxy server for all protocols
• Click OK

Now surf to a website that you do not have access before.

User Experience

One of the disadvantage of using Tor is the the speed can be slow, some time painfully so. So you may not want to surf with it.

Privoxy also block ads and certain website. Depending on your preference you may or may not like this.

If everything work fine, great. But if you need customization, be prepared to dig around for information and read alot.

The tool does not take up too much space so it is good to have it around. Who knows you may travel to one of those filtering country.

Chinese support

Chinese language interface in Tor is included.

• Right click on Tor
• Select Configure
• Click Appearance
• Select from Language drop down
• Click Save (on the top row)

Where to get it?

• Tor is at http://tor.eff.org/
• Current version: 0.1.1.23
• Function: anonymous Internet communication system (use as web filter bypass)

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