Thankfully macOS provides a way to programmatically set those proxy values via the networksetup utility. When you’re already in the Terminal to start up Tor, additionally setting the network settings involves a lot of fiddling around. #All in one go: start Tor & set network proxy settings automatically Note that you have to repeat those steps for every other network interface if you use, say, Wi-Fi and Ethernet interchangeably.

Switching to the Tor location routes all network traffic on your system through Tor.

Go to Advanced > Proxies and activate SOCKS Proxy and add those values:Īfter hitting OK & Apply at the initial network screen, you can easily switch to this newly created location from your menu bar under  > Location whenever you start up Tor.

Hitting Done will select the new location which is now ready to be configured.

Create a new location by hitting the plus button and name it Tor.

From Location dropdown at the top, select Edit Locations….

You can do this under System Preferences > Network by creating a specific Tor network location for it: #Set network proxy settings via System Preferences In order for all your system traffic being routed through Tor you need to adjust your system’s network proxy settings which you can either do visually in the System Preferences or programmatically via macOS’s builtin networksetup. But none of your network traffic is routed through it yet. In your Terminal execute: brew install torĬongratulations, you now have Tor running on your system. #Install TorĬontrary to the weirdly outdated install instructions on Tor’s website (hey, remember Macports?), installing Tor on macOS is super simple with Homebrew. Much depends on your browsing habits, what apps you're using, and none of the methods below will offer the same level of protection than Tor Browser out of the box. Or just use the browser you’re used to.įor this you need to have Tor installed on your system and additionally set specific proxy values in your network preferences after you’ve started Tor.īe aware that the instructions and the script mentioned below will not make whatever you do on the web anonymous. That’s the way to go if you want the highest level of protection without much further configuration.īut it’s based on an older version of Firefox and there might be more you want to do anonymously on your machine than just browsing the web, like accessing resources via the Terminal or any other app. Upon start, Tor Browser automatically starts the required Tor background processes and routes traffic through the Tor network.

It’s a modified version of Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) with Tor and some extensions (Torbutton, TorLauncher, NoScript, and HTTPS-Everywhere) built right in. The most simple way to surf anonymously with Tor is to just grab Tor Browser. I’m using macOS Catalina (10.15) for the following instructions but it should work on almost any macOS version.

Tor for mac os