Available Linux/Unix Packages
What's the difference between Stable & Unstable?
Tor is distributed as Free Software under the 3-clause BSD license. The bundles also include Vidalia and Privoxy, which are supporting applications distributed under the GNU GPL.
There is no fee for installing Tor, or using the Tor network, but if you want Tor to become faster and more usable please consider making a tax-deductible donation to The Tor Project.
To keep informed of security advisories and new stable releases, subscribe to the or-announce mailing list (you will be asked to confirm via email). You can also watch the list's RSS feed.
Warning: Want Tor to really work?
...then please don't just install it and go on. You need to change some of your habits, and reconfigure your software! Tor by itself is NOT all you need to maintain your anonymity. There are several major pitfalls to watch out for:
- Tor only protects Internet applications that are configured to send their traffic through Tor — it doesn't magically anonymize all your traffic just because you install it. We recommend you use Firefox with the Torbutton extension.
- Browser plugins such as Java, Flash, ActiveX, RealPlayer, Quicktime, Adobe's PDF plugin, and others can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. You should probably uninstall your plugins (go to "about:plugins" to see what is installed), or investigate QuickJava, FlashBlock, and NoScript if you really need them. Consider removing extensions that look up more information about the websites you type in (like Google toolbar), as they may bypass Tor and/or broadcast sensitive information. Some people prefer using two browsers (one for Tor, one for unsafe browsing).
- Beware of cookies: if you ever browse without Tor and Privoxy and a site gives you a cookie, that cookie could identify you even when you start using Tor again. You should clear your cookies frequently. CookieCuller can help protect any cookies you do not want to lose.
- Tor anonymizes the origin of your traffic, and it encrypts everything inside the Tor network, but it can't encrypt your traffic between the Tor network and its final destination. If you are communicating sensitive information, you should use as much care as you would on the normal scary Internet — use HTTPS or other end-to-end encryption and authentication.
- While Tor blocks attackers on your local network from discovering or influencing your destination, it opens new risks: malicious or misconfigured Tor exit nodes can send you the wrong page, or even send you embedded Java applets disguised as domains you trust.
Be smart and learn more. Understand what Tor does and does not offer. This list of pitfalls isn't complete, and we need your help identifying and documenting all the issues.
What's the difference between Stable & Unstable?
Stable packages are released when we believe the features and code will not change for many months.
Unstable packages are released so you can help us test new features and bugfixes. Even though they have a higher version number than the stable versions listed above, there is a much higher chance of serious reliability and security bugs in these downloads. Please be prepared to report bugs.
See our FAQ entry on verifying package signatures, which allows you to make sure you've downloaded the file we intended you to get.
See the developer documentation for instructions on fetching Tor from SVN to get the very latest development version. You can also download the Privoxy source or Vidalia source.
If you have trouble downloading Tor from this site, here is a list of sites mirroring the Tor site.
For a list of what has changed in each stable Tor release, see the ReleaseNotes. For a list of changes in both stable and development versions, see the ChangeLog.