Non-Whonix ™ Tor Browser

About this Non-Whonix ™ Tor Browser Page
Support Status	stable
Difficulty	easy
Maintainer	torjunkie
Support	Support

Introduction

Various wiki sections recommend that a functional Tor Browser instance is maintained outside of the Whonix ™ platform. This is useful in various cases:

• Should Whonix ™ ever break, it is possible to search for a solution anonymously.
• System-wide Tor problems can be easily detected by testing connectivity outside of Whonix ™.
• Certain Tor / Tor Browser activities are difficult (or impossible) to configure in Whonix ™, but are much easier in the standard configuration.

In Non-Qubes-Whonix ™, it is recommended to have Tor Browser installed on the Linux / macOS / Windows host platform. In Qubes-Whonix ™, it is recommended to install Tor Browser in a debian-10 AppVM.

Easy

All Platforms: Manual Tor Browser Download

Follow these instructions to manually download Tor Browser with Firefox-ESR via the available onion service. This method is not anonymous, unless Qubes-Whonix ™ users temporarily set sys-whonix as the NetVM for the non-Whonix ™ AppVM.

Debian Linux Hosts

Tor Browser can optionally be downloaded utilizing the tb-updater software package by Whonix ™ developers. By default the download does not occur over Tor, meaning it is not anonymous.

1. Add the Whonix ™ signing key.

sudo apt-key --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/whonix.gpg adv --keyserver hkp://ipv4.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-keys 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

sudo apt-key --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/whonix.gpg adv --keyserver hkp://ipv4.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-keys 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

2. Add the Whonix ™ APT repository.

echo “deb http://deb.whonix.org buster main contrib non-free” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/whonix.list

echo “deb http://deb.whonix.org buster main contrib non-free” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/whonix.list

3. Update the package lists.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get update

4. Install tb-updater.

sudo apt-get install tb-updater

sudo apt-get install tb-updater

Moderate: Qubes-Whonix ™

Qubes-Whonix ™ R4 only! This method is anonymous.

The Qubes-Whonix ™ R4 or above instructions using Whonix ™ tb-updater are a little more difficult because TemplateVMs are non-networked by default.

These instructions:

1. Anonymously retrieve and verify the Whonix ™ signing key.
2. Copy the Whonix ™ signing key to a debian-10 TemplateVM clone (debian-10-tor).
3. Add the Whonix ™ signing key to a list of trusted keys.
4. Install apt-transport-tor in the debian-10-tor TemplateVM.
5. Add the Whonix ™ onion repository.
6. Install tb-updater from the Whonix ™ stable repository.
7. Create a debian-tor-browser AppVM based on the debian-10 TemplateVM clone.
8. Complete the anonymous installation of Tor Browser in the non-Whonix ™ VM.

Clone the debian-10 TemplateVM

Prerequisite: The Debian 10 TemplateVM must be manually installed first. In dom0, run.

sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-templates-itl-testing qubes-template-debian-10

sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-templates-itl-testing qubes-template-debian-10

In Qube Manager: Right-click debian-10 template → Clone qube → Rename to debian-10-tor

anon-whonix Steps

Run the following commands in anon-whonix Konsole.

1. Add the Whonix ™ signing key.

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver jirk5u4osbsr34t5.onion --recv-keys 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver jirk5u4osbsr34t5.onion --recv-keys 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

2. Display the key fingerprint.

sudo apt-key adv --fingerprint 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

sudo apt-key adv --fingerprint 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

3. Verify the Whonix ™ signing key fingerprint.

Compare the fingerprint to the one found here.

4. Copy the Whonix ™ signing key to a temporary whonix.key file.

sudo apt-key export 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA > /tmp/whonix.key

sudo apt-key export 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA > /tmp/whonix.key

5. Copy the whonix.key text file to the debian-10-tor TemplateVM.

qvm-copy /tmp/whonix.key debian-10-tor

qvm-copy /tmp/whonix.key debian-10-tor

debian-10-tor TemplateVM Steps

Complete the following steps in debian-10-tor Konsole.

1. Add the Whonix ™ signing key to the list of trusted keys.

sudo apt-key add ~/QubesIncoming/anon-whonix/whonix.key

sudo apt-key add ~/QubesIncoming/anon-whonix/whonix.key

2. Install apt-transport-tor from the Debian repository.

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-tor

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-tor

3. Add the Whonix ™ stable onion APT repository.

Note: tor+http does not work in this configuration.

echo "deb http://deb.dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onion buster main contrib non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/whonix.list

echo "deb http://deb.dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onion buster main contrib non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/whonix.list

4. Update the package lists.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get update

5. Install tb-updater by Whonix ™.

sudo apt-get install tb-updater

sudo apt-get install tb-updater

Note: This step will correctly install tb-updater, but if it tries to automatically download Tor Browser it will fail because the download attempt from The Tor Project is blocked by default.

debian-tor-browser AppVM Steps

1. Create an AppVM based on the debian-10-tor TemplateVM: debian-tor-browser.

In Qube Manager: Left-click Qube → Create new qube

Use the following settings:

• Name and label: debian-tor-browser
• Type: AppVM
• Template: debian-10-tor
• Networking: default (sys-firewall)

2. Temporarily set sys-whonix as the NetVM for the Debian AppVM.

In Qube Manager: Right-click debian-tor-browser → Qube settings → Networking → Select sys-whonix → OK

3. Download Tor Browser.

In Konsole, run.

update-torbrowser --input gui

update-torbrowser --input gui

4. Revert the networking setting to sys-firewall in Qube Manager.

5. Launch Tor Browser from the AppVM menu and check it is functional.

Note: Tor Browser can be kept up-to-date using Tor Browser's internal updater. It is not necessary to run the update-torbrowser command again.

Footnotes

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