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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
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<head>
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  <title>Tor SwitchProxy Install Instructions</title>
  <meta name="Author" content="Roger Dingledine" />
  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
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  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" />
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  <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
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</head>

<body>
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<!-- TITLE BAR & NAVIGATION -->

<table class="banner" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="banner-left"></td>
        <td class="banner-middle">
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            <a href="/index.html">Home</a>
          | <a href="/howitworks.html">How It Works</a>
          | <a href="/download.html">Download</a>
          | <a href="/documentation.html">Docs</a>
          | <a href="/users.html">Users</a>
          | <a href="/faq.html">FAQs</a>
          | <a href="/volunteer.html">Volunteer</a>
          | <a href="/developers.html">Developers</a>
          | <a href="/research.html">Research</a>
          | <a href="/people.html">People</a>
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        </td>
        <td class="banner-right"></td>
    </tr>
</table>
 
<!-- END TITLE BAR & NAVIGATION -->

<div class="center">

<div class="main-column">
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<h1>Installing SwitchProxy for <a href="http://tor.eff.org/">Tor</a></h1>
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<hr />
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<p>
SwitchProxy is a Firefox plugin that makes it easy for you to switch
between using a proxy and connecting to websites directly.</p>
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<p>In this howto, you'll set up SwitchProxy to let you change
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between using Tor and a direct connection. We assume you already
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have Firefox installed and working.</p>
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<p>The screenshots here are oriented towards Windows users, but
SwitchProxy works anywhere Firefox works. Hopefully everybody else can
follow along just fine.</p>
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<hr />
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<a id="zero"></a>
<h2><a class="anchor" href="#zero">Step Zero: Download and Install Tor and Privoxy</a></h2>
<br />
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<p>Before you start, you need to make sure 1) Tor is up and running,
2) Privoxy is up and running, and 3) Privoxy is configured to point
to Tor.</p>

<p>For Windows users, this means <a
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href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-win32.html#installing">step one</a>
and <a href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-win32.html#privoxy">step
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two</a> of the Windows Tor installation howto. Mac OS X users just need
to do <a href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-osx.html#installing">step
one</a> of OS X Tor installation howto, since our OS X package includes
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Privoxy and configures it already. Linux/BSD/Unix users should do <a
href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-unix.html#installing">step one</a>
and <a href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-unix.html#privoxy">step
two</a> of the Unix Tor installation howto.
</p>
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<hr />
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<a id="one"></a>
<h2><a class="anchor" href="#one">Step One: Download and Install SwitchProxy</a></h2>
<br />
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<p>SwitchProxy is a Firefox plugin, so you need to go through
the process of installing a new plugin. First, go to the <a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=125">
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SwitchProxy</a> web page. (It looks like Firefox 1.5 users
can <a href="http://www.scorpiondb.com/firefox/extensions/index.htm">go here</a>.)
Turn on JavaScript for now and click "Install Now":</p>
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<img alt="switchproxy web page"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-webpage.jpg" />

<p>It will pop up a window asking for permission to install the plugin.
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Click on the "Install Now" button:
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</p>

<img alt="firefox plugin warning"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-plugin-starting.jpg" />
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<p>Once the installer is finished, you should close all of your Firefox
windows and restart Firefox.</p>
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<img alt="firefox plugin finished"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-plugin-finished.jpg" />

<hr />
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<a id="two"></a>
<h2><a class="anchor" href="#two">Step Two: Configure SwitchProxy</a></h2>
<br />
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<p>When you restart Firefox, you'll notice there's a new toolbar
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that lets you control your proxies. Now we're going to set up a proxy
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configuration for Tor. Click on "Add" in the new Proxy toolbar:</p>
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<img alt="new toolbar"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-toolbar.jpg" />
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<p>It will ask you to select a proxy type. Choose
"Standard." (There's also an "anonymous" proxy type that
uses an ad hoc set of anonymous proxies out there. You
don't want this, because those other "anonymous" proxies <a
href="http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#ComparisonProxyAggregators">give
you much weaker security than Tor</a>.)
</p>
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<img alt="standard proxy"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-proxytype.jpg" />

<p>Now it will show you the standard proxy config window for Firefox.
Give this configuration a proxy label of "tor". Then fill in "localhost"
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and "8118" for all four entries, as shown here. (Even
though Privoxy doesn't support FTP and Gopher, <a
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href="http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#FtpProxy">you
should set them up anyway</a>.) Then click "OK":</p>
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<img alt="proxy config"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-proxyconfig.jpg" />

<p>Now you've created the "tor" proxy label, but you're not using it yet.
Click on the pull-down list and select tor, as shown here:</p>

<img alt="switch to tor"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-switch.jpg" />
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<p>Almost done. Click "Apply" to make your change take effect:</p>
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<img alt="apply"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-apply.jpg" />
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<p>Done! Firefox will reload your current page. In
this example screenshot, it reloaded the page and <a
href="http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#GoogleLanguage">happened
to get a German exit node</a>:</p>
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<img alt="german google"
src="http://tor.eff.org/img/screenshot-switchproxy-german.jpg" />
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<hr />
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<a id="three"></a>
<h2><a class="anchor" href="#three">Step Step Three: Check if it works</a></h2>
<br />
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<p>Now Firefox is using Privoxy as an HTTP proxy, Privoxy is using Tor as
a socks4a proxy, and Tor is making your connections to the Internet.</p>
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<p>In the above example, it was clear that it worked because the web
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page showed up in a different language. In other cases, though,
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you'll want to verify that your setup is working. Do
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<a href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-win32.html#verify">step four</a>
of the Windows Tor installation howto, or
<a href="http://tor.eff.org/doc/tor-doc-osx.html#verify">step three</a>
of the OS X Tor installation howto.</p>
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<p>You should be aware of one anonymity gotcha: when you switch from
using Tor to a direct connection (or vice versa), by default the page
that's currently active will be reloaded through the new proxy setting.
So make sure you're on a page that isn't sensitive, before switching.
(You can also change this behavior in SwitchProxy's "Options |
Preferences" menu.)</p>
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<hr />

<p>If you have suggestions for improving this document, please <a
href="mailto:tor-bugs@freehaven.net">send them to us</a>. Thanks!</p>
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  </div><!-- #main -->
</div>
  <div class="bottom" id="bottom">
     <i><a href="mailto:tor-webmaster@freehaven.net"
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     class="smalllink">Webmaster</a></i> - $Id$
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  </div>
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</body>
</html>