How to safely use Tor Browser

By now i imagine you already know what Tor Browser is and how it works. Next it is time to know how to use it safely.

BUY YOUR COMPUTER WITH CASH

So many forget this. When you buy your computer with a credit card the “paper trail” starts. The best way is always to use cash to buy your computer.

USE A VPN

This one is pretty simple. You will need to mask your IP as soon as possible. So, use something like CyberGhost to hide your location.

USE FIREFOX TO DOWNLOAD TOR

Ctrl + Shift + N and only then download Tor. I’m not sure if it is true or not, but by simple downloading Tor Browser you will be added to a very special list.

And, of course, this will also help you to keep your activities secure:

Don’t torrent over Tor

Torrent file-sharing applications have been observed to ignore proxy settings and make direct connections even when they are told to use Tor. Even if your torrent application connects only through Tor, you will often send out your real IP address in the tracker GET request, because that’s how torrents work. Not only do you deanonymize your torrent traffic and your other simultaneous Tor web traffic this way, you also slow down the entire Tor network for everyone else.

Don’t enable or install browser plugins

Tor Browser will block browser plugins such as Flash, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and others: they can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. Similarly, we do not recommend installing additional addons or plugins into Tor Browser, as these may bypass Tor or otherwise harm your anonymity and privacy.

Use HTTPS versions of websites

Tor will encrypt your traffic to and within the Tor network, but the encryption of your traffic to the final destination website depends upon on that website. To help ensure private encryption to websites, Tor Browser includes HTTPS Everywhere to force the use of HTTPS encryption with major websites that support it. However, you should still watch the browser URL bar to ensure that websites you provide sensitive information to display a blue or green URL bar button, include https:// in the URL, and display the proper expected name for the website. Also see EFF’s interactive page explaining how Tor and HTTPS relate.

Don’t open documents downloaded through Tor while online

Tor Browser will warn you before automatically opening documents that are handled by external applications. DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING. You should be very careful when downloading documents via Tor (especially DOC and PDF files, unless you use the PDF viewer that’s built into Tor Browser) as these documents can contain Internet resources that will be downloaded outside of Tor by the application that opens them. This will reveal your non-Tor IP address. If you must work with DOC and/or PDF files, we strongly recommend either using a disconnected computer, downloading the free VirtualBox and using it with a virtual machine image with networking disabled, or using Tails. Under no circumstances is it safe to use BitTorrent and Tor together, however.