On Windows The TorBrowser starts the tor daemon itself. So when a user closes the browser the daemon is also killed. This creates a problem because as a user I want to configure SOCKS proxy for other programs but I have to keep the browser open.
I googled some instruction how to install windows service by running tor.exe –service install but this command didn’t worked and I don’t want to dig into.
Why not just install the Tor Service during the browser installation?
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Agree …
Why not just install the Tor Service during the browser installation …
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I don’t think this is a good idea. For instance, there is potential for a conflict with user privileges and permissions when running such a system-wide daemon automatically with Tor Browser.
Users wanting to run a tor network daemon should install and run the Tor Expert Bundle.
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Why not just install the Tor Service during the browser installation …
Because that is exactly what Tor Expert Bundle - or plain little-t-tor is for. Most regular Tor Browser users just need the browser and do not need a Tor service/daemon running all the time. Furthermore, Tor Browser is designed as a self-contained program with a dedicated version of Tor Expert Bundle purely to support Tor Browser’s connection to the Tor network. The tor executable bundled with Tor Browser runs with user privileges only and its configuration file (torrc) is intended to be used with the Tor Browser application only. Trying to set configurations for other applications in it is a Bad Idea, as it could compromise your anonymity when using Tor Browser. It is also unnecessary:
When you install little-t-tor (a separate tor executable) it runs as a daemon in a different process with elevated permissions and has its own torrc config. file. This can be used to configure any number of applications to use a SOCKS proxy with Tor. Crucially, any changes to its configuration will have no impact on a user’s Tor Browser installation. The default ports used in Tor Browser’s torrc and little-t-tor’s torrc are purposefully different, so a user can run little-t-tor alongside Tor Browser on the same machine.
There is not too much documentation (or none) for the Tor Expert Bundle link above or the little-t-tor link above.
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Users wanting to run a tor network daemon should install and run the Tor Expert Bundle.
Excuse me …
How to install and run Tor Expert Bundle ?
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Since the original post above was for Windows. I give you a Windows explanation. You can extract it to whatever directory you want. I use C:\tor in this example.
From a command prompt or terminal execute c:\tor\tor\tor OR double click tor.exe
You get this at startup:
[notice] Tor can’t help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at Am I totally anonymous if I use Tor? | Tor Project | Support
[notice] Configuration file “C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\tor\torrc” not present, using reasonable defaults.
[warn] Path for GeoIPFile () is relative and will resolve to c:\tor\tor\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
[warn] Path for GeoIPv6File () is relative and will resolve to c:\tor\tor\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
[notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
..
..
[notice] Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done
You can then do stuff like:
curl --proxy socks5h://127.0.0.1:9050 http://ip-api.com/json/
When starting, tor warns: Tor can’t help you if you use it wrong!
Without documentation you are flying blind. What are these defaults?
tor --help gives this:
tor -f [args]
See man page for options, or https://www.torproject.org/ for documentation
Here is a man page I found. It is for 'NIX type systems.
Your torrc file defaults to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\tor\torrc
The supplied geo files are in C:\tor\data so what is c:\tor\tor\<default>. It does not say.
So I presume you add these 2 lines in the torrc file
GeoIPFile C:\tor\data\geoip
GeoIPv6File C:\tor\data\geoip6