Hello, friends. If you are one of those users who care a lot about privacy, then you have to read this post because thanks to it you will be able to install Tor Browser on Debian 11.
Tor Browser is a free open-source browser configured to work on the Tor network. One of the features of the TOR network is that your browsing is encrypted through several servers before going online, obfuscating its origin to improve your privacy and to evade internet blocking.
Therefore, for many users who live in countries where governments exercise strong censorship, this tool is vital to their daily lives. However, it also helps all users concerned about their anonymity on the internet.
On a slightly more technical level, we are talking about a Firefox derivative, so compatibility with Debian 11 is guaranteed. On the other hand, it is open source and can be used on many different operating systems.
So, let’s go for it.
Installing Tor Browser on Debian 11
We can install Tor Browser using the official package provided by the project’s website.
So, go to the download section and choose the Linux version.
Then, open the folder where you downloaded them using your file browser. Decompress it and start browsing the generated folders.
When you are at the top level of the directory structure, you will then see the launcher called start-tor-browser which you will have to double click to run. If it does not run, first assign it to run permissions by right-clicking and selecting Properties and check the permissions box.
So, you will see this screen.
For many users, clicking on the Connect button is enough, but you can always customize the settings by clicking on Tor Network Settings which is a useful option for those living in countries with strong government censorship.
After that, Tor Browser will be ready for you to use.
Install Tor Browser using the terminal
You can do this whole process via the terminal if you find it faster.
So, open a terminal and download Tor with the help of the wget command.
wget https://www.torproject.org/dist/torbrowser/10.5.8/tor-browser-linux64-10.5.8_en-US.tar.xz
Remember that this command may change if the version of Tor changes.
Then decompress it
tar -xvJf tor-browser-linux64-10.5.8_en-US.tar.xz
browse the generated folder
cd tor-browser*
And assign run permissions to the boot script.
chmod +x start-tor-browser
And run it
./start-tor-browser.desktop --register-app
Doing this will not only start Tor but will add an entry to the menu so that next time you can run it from the main menu and not from the file.
Install Tor Browser using Flatpak
There is another method to install Tor which is using Flatpak. This method is also quite secure and if you already have it installed then you may want to use it.
In case you want to use it, first install Flatpak.
sudo apt install flatpak
Then add the Flathub repository where it is hosted.
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
And finally, install it
sudo flatpak install flathub com.github.micahflee.torbrowser-launcher
To run the launcher
flatpak run com.github.micahflee.torbrowser-launcher
With this tool, you can safely download Tor and then run it as in previous steps.
Conclusion
Tor is a peculiar browser, but it has become important for maintaining the privacy and above all the security of our data. So knowing how to install it can be useful in many cases.
