A number of websites are continually banned by the authorities, e.g. torrent sites by the government, Facebook by certain companies, and many others through university proxies. We here are strong supporters of freedom of choice, and show how to bypass such restrictions and access (most) blocked sites easily.
Quoting the website, Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.
A number of volunteers and Tor users around the world run a distributed network of relays. When you need to access a site which is blocked in your region, you use Tor to route the communication through one of the relays, situated where the same site has not been blocked. Think of it as a massive network of proxies.
Using Tor
Download the Tor Browser Bundle off the website to get started. It contains the core Tor software, the Vidalia GUI, and a configured-for-Tor version of Firefox.
Extract the bundle and click on the Start Tor Browser.
Go to Settings -> Network if you access internet through a proxy.
Once you’re connected to the Tor network, Firefox opens up and you can (almost) any website anonymously. If it so happens that the website you wish to access is also blocked through the connected relay, simply click on Use a New Identity to try through another connection.
You can see a map of the Tor network and the bandwidth usage, apart from settings through the Vidalia Control Panel.
To use the relaying with another software go to Settings -> Advanced and note the local address through which to route the connections. Use it as the proxy in any software you want to use Tor with. (You might want to set Authentication to none). Try to use HTTPS connections instead of HTTP.
Contributing to the Network
Click on Setup Relaying in the Vidalia Control Panel, and select the type of relay you want to contribute. Enter the basic settings, letting automatic port forwarding checked. Set a bandwidth limit so that your connection is not totally hogged. Allow Tor connections through your firewall.
If you face any difficulty in this step, refer to the official guide.
We hope that this post relieved you a lot of frustration regrading the <mostly> unnecessary banning of certain websites
I never knew that there is a chance to navigate on websites that are blocked in your region. I use proxy, both public and anonymous, but never thought that there is a network of relays that could make life on internet a lot easier. Thanks for sharing this with us!
I’ve a few doubts regarding contributing to the Tor relay network. Will I be losing any bandwidth if I’m part of this network, because my ISP plan is MB based. Also is there any security problem to my PC like hacking, virus, malware if I become part of this.
I just checked this tool with Pandora and Hulu. They both are asking to install new version of Flash or upgrade to a modern browser. I’m using Firefox 12 and the latest Flash. But still I’m unable to browse these sites from India. What may be the reason?
@karri you are unable to use flash because tor launches portable version of Firefox that comes with it and it has no flash plugin installed for it all you can do is to change the proxy setting of the Firefox you installed and then use flash with tor.
In the networks option head for proxy settings and the n change the manual proxy config to
SOCKS host 127.0.0.1 and port to 9050 or match this setting with that running on portable Firefox launched by tor.
Enjoy.
Hi Mrinal, I have heard about this but haven’t try. Would love to give it a try. Good For Collage Student :)
I have used Tor browser before and I regularly use it whenever I need to hide my real information.
This tool is completely new for me, I have never tried it. But as far as I understood from your description it can be quite easy and helpful at the same time