How to install Tor Browser in Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver Linux

Objective

To following article will explain how to download, install and use Tor Browser on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver Linux.

The aim for Tor Browser is to protect your online privacy, hence from this reason make sure that your Tor downloaded has not been tempered with by properly verifying Tor Browser’s signing signatures otherwise Tor Browser have an absolutely opposite effect for you.

Operating System and Software Versions

Operating System: – Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver
Software: – Tor Browser 7.5 or higher

Requirements

Privileged access to your Ubuntu System as root or via sudo command is required.

Conventions

# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Instructions

Install Tor Browser using apt command

Ti simplify the installation of Tor Browser on Ubuntu Linux the Tor Browser launcher is now part of the standard Ubuntu repository. This makes it extremely simple to install Tor Browser on Ubuntu.

Open up terminal and execute the following apt command to install Tor Browser Launcher:

$ sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher

To start Tor Browser run Tor browser use the start menu and search for Tor Browser:

There are two icons, one is for Tor Browser and the other for Tor Browser Launcher Settings.

Alternatively, you can start Tor Browser directly from a command line:

$ torbrowser-launcher

Manual Tor Browser installation on UBuntu

If from any reason the above automatic installation of Tor browser fails, or you wish to get the latest version, you can install Tor Browser manually.

Download Tor Browser

The first step is to head over to the official tor browser website and download the latest Linux Tor Browser package and relevant *.asc signature.

Please be aware that the tor project is often a target for hackers and DDos attacks. From this reason we are now going to check a correct signing signatures of our downloaded Tor Browser package.

Assuming that you have downloaded the tor browser package and signatures to your /~Downloads directory first import “Tor Browser Developers” signing key. Execute the bellow command:

$ gpg --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys D1483FA6C3C07136
gpg: key 4E2C6E8793298290: public key "Tor Browser Developers (signing key) " imported
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

Navigate to Downloads directory and confirm that both, Tor Browser package and its signature are present:

$ ls
tor-browser-linux64-7.5_en-US.tar.xz  tor-browser-linux64-7.5_en-US.tar.xz.asc

Next verify signature of Tor Browser package:

$ gpg --verify tor-browser-linux64-7.5_en-US.tar.xz.asc tor-browser-linux64-7.5_en-US.tar.xz
gpg: Signature made Tue 23 Jan 2018 11:50:13 AEDT
gpg:                using RSA key D1483FA6C3C07136
gpg: Good signature from "Tor Browser Developers (signing key) " [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: EF6E 286D DA85 EA2A 4BA7  DE68 4E2C 6E87 9329 8290
     Subkey fingerprint: A430 0A6B C93C 0877 A445  1486 D148 3FA6 C3C0 7136

Tor Browser Signature Verification

Check for a Good signature from "Tor Browser Developers text on the above Line 4. All seems to be in order!

Extract Tor Browser

Still in the Downloads directory, extract the Tor Browser package into a root of your home directory:newly

$ tar xJpf tor-browser-linux64-7.5_en-US.tar.xz -C ~/

Start Tor Browser

To start the Tor Browser on your Ubuntu Linux box, change to your home directory and navigate to the newly extracted tor browser directory using cd command :

$ cd
$ cd tor-browser_en-US/

From here start tor browser:

$ ./start-tor-browser.desktop

Alternatively, register tor browser as a local application, thus create an icon shortcut accessible via menu launcher:

$ ./start-tor-browser.desktop --register-app

Start the Tor Browser on Ubuntu 18.04

Wait for the Tor Browser to connect to a tor network.

Hit Test Tor Network Settings link to perform Tor Browser test.

If the IP address you see is not your private external IP address then you are good to go browse privately!