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How to run Tor on the PowerPC

Hack5190

Hack5190

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 21, 2015
531
311
(UTC-05:00) Cuba
The safest (and easiest) way to use Tor is via their Tor Browser. However, there is no official Tor Browser for our PowerPC's. There is a old (2015-Feb) project on sourceforge available for downloading that does work (https://sourceforge.net/projects/osxpowerpcpackages/). The concern I have is that this project uses a old version of Firefox / TenFourFox.

As an alternative I choose to install Tor and edit the proxy settings of TenFourFox when using Tor. Below are directions for installing Tor on your system. Note that the binaries in the link are version 0.2.4.21, as of today (23 Feb 2016) the current version of Tor is 0.2.7.8.

Step by Step:
  • Unzip and copy the Tor directory to your system
  • Open terminal. CD to the copied directory. Enter "./tor"
  • Multiple status messages will scroll by and then you will see the message "Tor has successfully opened a circuit"
  • Now configure your browser to use Tor by editing the browsers network settings
  • Choose Manual Proxy
    • Set the Socks Host to "127.0.0.1"
    • Set the Port to "9050"
    • Set the Socks type to "Socks 5"
UPDATE - 18 Mar 2016:

Additional security settings are recommend when using TenFourFox with Tor. That list of changes can be found here -> https://www.privacytools.io/#about_config
 
Last edited:
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You can also run your email apps and stuff like Dropbox through TOR using the SOCKs proxy as well.

At one point I had my Mac connecting to the JonDo Network and dumping my traffic into TOR.

What I posted on Facebook at the time…
TenFourFox hooked into JonDonym (an annonymity network) which then forwards to TOR. Final result is that my web traffic is carried on the JonDonym network THROUGH the TOR network.
Click to expand...

Note that doing this makes your Mac slow to browse.

330823_491623240854700_232246757_o.jpg

[doublepost=1456249058][/doublepost]Note, in my pic I am using Vidalia. Makes it easier to stop/start Tor.
 
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Hack5190 said:
In my testing with the command line version of Tor - it doesn't use a lot of CPU or RAM. The surfing speed is good, try it ;)
Click to expand...
Oh no. No, no, no. :D

I was doing that for about two years or so, but the downsides eventually got to me. Facebook, Microsoft, Google and my ISP all saw me bouncing around between countries because your IP changes with your Tor exit node. That in itself is not a problem but I got very tired of authenticating all the time, very tired of Google locking me out of search or requiring me to take steps in order to search and/or your Google search page changing depending on which country the Tor exit node was "in". Microsoft wanted me to relogin each time I wanted to use webmail in the same session because it detected I was in a different country every five minutes and my ISP actually started denying delivery of my email to Entourage for the same reason.

Google also denies you outright if it detects that the IP address is an overused exit node.

It just got to be a very real hassle, especially considering all I was doing is what I do now. Post here and on a few other social sites and read Google News.

But if I do need to do this again, I'll try your method.
 
Hack5190 said:
The safest (and easiest) way to use Tor is via their Tor Browser. However, there is no official Tor Browser for our PowerPC's. There is a old (2015-Feb) project on sourceforge available for downloading that does work (https://sourceforge.net/projects/osxpowerpcpackages/). The concern I have is that this project uses a old version of Firefox / TenFourFox.

As an alternative I choose to install Tor and edit the proxy settings of TenFourFox when using Tor. Below are directions for installing Tor on your system. Note that the binaries in the link are version 0.2.4.21, as of today (23 Feb 2016) the current version of Tor is 0.2.7.8.

Step by Step:
  • Download the binaries from here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/74swnrmehodsuft/Tor.zip?dl=0
  • Unzip and copy the Tor directory to your system
  • Open terminal. CD to the copied directory. Enter "./tor"
  • Multiple status messages will scroll by and then you will see the message "Tor has successfully opened a circuit"
  • Now configure your browser to use Tor by editing the browsers network settings
  • Choose Manual Proxy
    • Set the Socks Host to "127.0.0.1"
    • Set the Port to "9050"
    • Set the Socks type to "Socks 5"
  • Finally go to https://check.torproject.org in your browser to confirm you are using Tor
UPDATE - 18 Mar 2016:

Additional security settings are recommend when using TenFourFox with Tor. That list of changes can be found here -> https://www.privacytools.io/#about_config
Click to expand...
Can you repost the link again ? It says the file is deleted.
 
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barracuda156 said:
Has anyone been able to build Tor Browser on PowerPC? (tor itself does build.)
Click to expand...
When I posted way back in 2016, the screenshots I had taken were older. When I was actually using Tor, I used a browser addon and a PowerPC version of the Tor app itself (not the browser).

Nothing has changed I think and the method I used has only gotten more and more outdated. I doubt you could something that old to build and even if you did, would you trust it?
 
Tor is great, until you realize the the exit nodes are the weak point and any compromised exit point server is serving you up to whoever is running the exit node.

Something like ExpressVPN would likely bring most of the features of Tor that honest people would want.

I doubt if people want to use the web for illegal activity any of the proxy type services are safe.
 
DearthnVader said:
Tor is great, until you realize the the exit nodes are the weak point and any compromised exit point server is serving you up to whoever is running the exit node.
Click to expand...

This is a known concern. If it matters, there is i2p. Not sure it builds for PowerPC, but we can try, there is a version of it written in C.
 
Hack5190 said:
The safest (and easiest) way to use Tor is via their Tor Browser. However, there is no official Tor Browser for our PowerPC's. There is a old (2015-Feb) project on sourceforge available for downloading that does work (https://sourceforge.net/projects/osxpowerpcpackages/). The concern I have is that this project uses a old version of Firefox / TenFourFox.

As an alternative I choose to install Tor and edit the proxy settings of TenFourFox when using Tor. Below are directions for installing Tor on your system. Note that the binaries in the link are version 0.2.4.21, as of today (23 Feb 2016) the current version of Tor is 0.2.7.8.

Step by Step:
  • Download the binaries from here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/74swnrmehodsuft/Tor.zip?dl=0
  • Unzip and copy the Tor directory to your system
  • Open terminal. CD to the copied directory. Enter "./tor"
  • Multiple status messages will scroll by and then you will see the message "Tor has successfully opened a circuit"
  • Now configure your browser to use Tor by editing the browsers network settings
  • Choose Manual Proxy
    • Set the Socks Host to "127.0.0.1"
    • Set the Port to "9050"
    • Set the Socks type to "Socks 5"
  • Finally go to https://check.torproject.org in your browser to confirm you are using Tor
UPDATE - 18 Mar 2016:

Additional security settings are recommend when using TenFourFox with Tor. That list of changes can be found here -> https://www.privacytools.io/#about_config
Click to expand...

When Tor is installed with Macports, you just activate it with: sudo port load tor.
And use the said manual proxy settings.
 
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