Tor on Android

by ioerror | March 4, 2010

The Tor Project has been working very closely with Nathan Freitas and The Guardian Project to create an Android release. This is an early beta release and is not yet suitable for high security needs. The Android web browser is not protected by Torbutton and we have not yet developed an anonymous browser on the Android platform. Please be cautious with this release, it's probably pretty fragile and it's certainly not ready for serious use.

We've codenamed the Tor on Android project Orbot; Orbot is a single Android package that provides a new Tor controller, Privoxy as our trusty little HTTP proxy, libevent, and Tor itself. This Android package is using the C reference implementation of Tor. Orbot should be orders of magnitude safer than other Tor implementations on Android and it's our official release. Everything you'll need for using Tor is in the package. :-)

We now have an Android webpage that discusses the Orbot Android package in some detail.

Orbot has some commonly used features such as support for bridges. It also has advanced features such as per application Torification on modified devices (commonly called 'rooted' phones). It has been tested on Android 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and on non-standard customized builds of Android. We think we've ironed out most of the kinks but we're looking for some community feedback from devices in the wild. We'd especially like to hear about the UI and what applications you commonly use with Tor.

When Orbot is successfully installed and running, it should provide a few standard interfaces to interface with the Tor network. Privoxy listens on 127.0.0.1:8118 - it's chained to the standard Tor SOCKS proxy on 127.0.0.1:9050. In addition, we have a DNSPort on port 5400. The DNSPort is most commonly used by the automagical per application Torification. These ports may change in the future; if they conflict with other common and popular applications, we'd like to hear about it.

Our official builds are available from our website. As per our usual style of package releases, we're releasing the .apk package with gpg signatures.

If you'd simply like the latest Android package, please visit this url:
http://www.torproject.org/dist/android/alpha-orbot-latest.apk

If you have the barcode scanner, you'll be able to directly load the
latest package by scanning the following QR code:

We plan to release Orbot in the Google Market in the near future. The
Orbot package you install from our website and the application in the
Market should be identical. In addition to the GPG signature, the .apk
files contain a digital signature. If you're feeling reasonably
paranoid, it's probably a fine idea to download the .apk from our
website, check the GPG signature, and then install the package on your
device manually.

If you'd like to reproduce our builds from source, we've documented the
build process in
our subversion repository.

If you'd like to read more about Orbot, we suggest you check out the
source and start hacking around:
svn co https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/ android/

Comments

Please note that the comment area below has been archived.

March 04, 2010

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This is completely unrelated but how is Tor on the iPhone looking? Never going to happen or still in some stage of development?

Tor works on the iPhone directly out of our source tree without modification. Sadly, unless you modify your iPhone, it's not possible to use Tor on the iPhone. It seems unlikely that it would be allowed in the Apple App Store.

There is active development by a dedicated and passionate member of the community. It's possible that he'll be able to whip up a solution but unless you've cracked your phone, it's not going to be simple or very useful.

September 06, 2010

In reply to ioerror

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I would be very interested in experimenting with Tor on the iPhone. Is it possible to get in contact with this "Dedicated and Passionate Member"?

March 04, 2010

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Tor bridges seems can not work in China,the great firewall seems becoming more Strong!

March 04, 2010

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tor now works much slow than before in China and tor bridges seems cannot work,why ?because of GFW ?

March 04, 2010

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It seems more bridges / relays are blocked in China. Any suggestion on this issue? Thanks.

March 05, 2010

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Tor is more difficult to work well in China, will it be blocked completely by China government in the future?

March 05, 2010

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How do I uninstall this program? It does not work for me and I no longer want it on my computer, but it doesn't show up in add/remove programs.

March 06, 2010

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This is unrelated to the post above but I wanted to report that the Python script here:
https://check.torproject.org/cgi-bin/TorBulkExitList.py

Is not working correctly (again) it keeps throwing out errors and is often not reporting all exit nodes that are live even when forcing it to give a fresh display of data and not cached data.

Can this be fixed? Also is there a way to report these things in future instead of posting comments on the blog?

Thanks

March 10, 2010

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my moto milestone with 2.0.1 rooted Android can successfully connected to the Tor network in China Mainland, but I still cannot access twitter, youtude via Dolphin or Chrome lite, even I've rebooted the mobile and enable/disable Transparent proxying.
do you guys have any idea on this issue? thanks.
R.L

March 27, 2010

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Thank you indeed for your great work.
I've been using Tor in China for many times.
Recently I got an Android phone, and will go to China at end of this year....
Hope Tor will help my mobile bypass the **** censorship :)

April 06, 2010

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Doesnt pass the TOR test on the android one.

Am I missing a setting ?

Ive checked the appropriate apps and have rooted the phone.

What else to do ?

April 07, 2010

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The use of Tor on an Android phone (such as the nexus) will allow for the use of certain apps outside of the US? I travel a lot and I'd love to be able to still use Pandora!

April 09, 2010

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Where will update-notifications on Orbot be posted?

April 15, 2010

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Sorry but i didn't catch: is there any version for iPhone at the moment? If Yes - where can i find this file? I think that this kind of version would be most popular.

April 15, 2010

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I was able to connect to ToR but I'm not willing to root my phone yet since I upgraded to 2.1 (and this is the first time I've had a reason to root it). I want to run PDAnet through ToR. Is there another way to do this? This seemed like the easiest solution since I spent a while day trying to route all of my traffic through ToR just to get some minor 360 game updates. The droid doesn't like downloading some files. I actually have to tunnel steam through ToR on my PC just to get steam client updates. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

April 19, 2010

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Links to the "latest" version of Tor for Android return a FORBIDDEN error.

The text on this blog asks that users test this and let the authors know of problems, but there's no link or reference to a forum to post, read, and discuss issues.

Installation of the 0.2.2.10 version on Android 2.1 Nexus One running Cyanogen's latest fail to run. The log shows:
Couldn't start Tor process:
/data/data/org.torproject.android/privoxy: not found

Checked the device - there is no such directory as /data/data anything.
Note that this ROM makes apps install themselves on the SD card. Checked SD card; no /data/data there either.

Pictures of Tor running on Android are different than the version that is installed with 0.2.2.10, which as concentric circles on the main screen that act as a button.

Basically, there needs to be a forum, and the website's references need to be up to date and correct. The biggest problem is no discernable links to any forum to research problems.

May 05, 2010

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nice to hear this good news!

I'm using tor with firefox on my pc now, hope to use tor on my HTC G2 asap!

May 05, 2010

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How to add advanced settings like proxy, keepalive, etc.? I added these additional settings directly to the torrc but Orbot just ignores them or overwrites torrc with its own limited settings.

May 10, 2010

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Transparent proxy option does seem to have any effect for me (Motorola Milestone, rooted Android 2.1).

July 03, 2010

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I cannot get a positive reading at check.torproject.org with tor on 2.2 with cyanogen's mod, anyone have a good walkthrough? I dont know what could be wrong.

July 03, 2010

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I am having trouble getting a positive result from check.torproject.org, with cyanogenmod 6 alpha 1, on nexus 1.

does anyone have a walkthrough, or be willing to help me get it configured?

July 03, 2010

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I am having trouble getting a positive result from check.torproject.org, with cyanogenmod 6 alpha 1, on nexus 1.

does anyone have a walkthrough, or be willing to help me get it configured?

July 18, 2010

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In China Tor will not go further, I guess Chinese Government will block it on immediate basis let hope for the best.

Thanks
Faris

August 27, 2010

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X10i rooted
tor is connecting but it couldn't start privoxy
I couln't find any answer in bug section or else where, any idea?

November 18, 2010

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how can i make it works with froyo ? the log showed that it start correctly, but for some reason, transparent proxy (even manual proxying via 8118 or whatever port that it used) never worked.

November 27, 2010

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since october,i couldnt connect the tor network .Can i use the tor bridge to solve this problem?

March 28, 2011

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I'm seeing everything working right out of the box on cyanogenmod 2.2 from the marketplace. Great job! Is it possible to change privoxy settings somehow? I would like to be able to log traffic from the proxy, mostly to see if some of the apps I have installed are sending back confidential information to their hosts. (Contact info/Mail settings etc) Possible?

May 07, 2011

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I figured out how to deploy Orbot with a custom torrc file, without having to rebuild Orbot from source, and without needing a rooted phone:
1. Download the latest Orbot apk file.
2. Open/extract the apk (it's really just a zip file with a different file extension) with your favorite zip utility.
3. Remove the META-INF folder from the apk.
4. Open the torrc file in the assets/ folder and modify it as you like.
5. Zip it all back up again.
6. Sign the .apk file using keytool and jarsigner according to the instructions at this URL: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/app-signing.html#cert
7. Copy to phone and install.

Works like a charm. Tested by specifying strict exitnodes and am now successfully watching the BBC iPlayer on my phone even though I'm in the UK.

You can't edit the torrc on the fly or without reinstalling Orbot using this method, but you don't need a rooted phone and you don't risk getting your torrc file overwritten by the old "default" one by Orbot.

I used this hint to set up Orbot using a http(s)proxy.
It Works !
Nevertheless there should be an option to to that. Perfect were, if this options would map to SSIDs or BSSIDs so it could change automatically if the device is connected to another network.

Thx for the hint.

Milraun

May 23, 2011

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Tor works on the iPhone directly out of our source tree without modification. Sadly, unless you modify your iPhone, it's not possible to use Tor on the iPhone. It seems unlikely that it would be allowed in the Apple App Store.

There is active development by a dedicated and passionate member of the community. It's possible that he'll be able to whip up a solution but unless you've cracked your phone, it's not going to be simple or very useful.
best android apps

August 04, 2011

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I've downloaded Orbot yesterday but it force closes upon Internet access on my Samsung Galaxy S I9000 with Android OS 2.3.4. And also it shows to connect(goes Green) even in Airplane mode. What could be done to correct this.

August 29, 2011

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Just installed on my HTC Hero running Elelinux (which uses CyanogenMod7 base) through the Android Market. Orbot says connected to the Tor network but when I used the "check" button the browser says can't connect to page, I can't connect to any web pages Google, BBC etc, and no other apps can connect to the internet i.e. downloading podcasts etc. Is there a setting I need to change?

August 31, 2011

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I have managed to make it work on SonyErricsson x1Mini
all I've done was changing the proxy of the APN to127.0.0.1 port:8118
Just go to:
Settings -> wireless & networks -> Mobile networks -> Access Point Names ->
click the selected name -> Proxy ->127.0.0.1
port -> 8118
Hope this will help
Hamed Ahmad

September 07, 2011

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HTC Sensation 2.3.4 non-root
Orbot Installed and run very well and as I read at Tor WWW I download and install proxy mobile 0.0.8 Add-ons for my fire fox browser and change port and proxy .But steel doesn,t work.Even I instal Orweb and it,s not work too.
You know, I live in Persian and it,s very important to me which can have a proxy.
Anyway thank you a lot because Tor work very nice on my PC.

December 07, 2011

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I have a samsung Galaxy tab GT-P1000 , and I wanna use Tor on my tab, I have installed it but I wanna know how can I use it in other web browsers such as Fire fox not only on orweb... can u please help me on this?

December 18, 2011

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hi,

just updated my Nexus S to ICS. Tor worked great on android 2.x but now on 4.x it's not. any ideas or ways which people have made it work on android 4.x (ice cream sandwhich)?

cheers

December 19, 2011

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I've installed Orbot and Orweb v2 on my Nexus and downloaded proxy_ mobile-0.0.8 add on but when I click on it to open it and install it, it says cannot open file....what should I do?

January 01, 2012

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Hi, all,

On my rooted Android phone I successfully use Orbot 0.2.3.7-alpha-orbot-1.0.6 to browse through Tor in privacy. Slow but working.

Here is my scenario: With Tor NOT enabled, using BeyondPod to download an audio podcast mp3, the speed is about 7Mbps while downloading podcast.

Then:
- I force quit BeyondPod
- in Orbot settings I enabled "Transparent Proxying" and "Tor Everything," turned Tor on, got green light. Tor is now running.
- restart BeyondPod.
- in BeyondPod I started a download of a different podcast mp3 (just to make sure it's not the same one from when Tor was not enabled) and the download speed is just as fast, about 7Mbps or about 896Kilobytes/s.

That is fast! On a rooted phone with "Transparent Proxying" and "Tor Everything" both enabled, the claim is that Orbot will "send all internet traffic through Tor." Am I REALLY using Tor when downloading podcasts that fast? I am puzzled, since browsing the web with Orbot on is quite slow.

Thank you,
Bryce

February 13, 2012

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I could get TOr to work great on my Atrix 2, but then i installed Avast and the anti theft and I dunno if that was the cause but now I cant get TOR to connect properly :/

February 19, 2012

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does orbot works with wireless(WIF),my android tab never success with orbot ,firefox,and proxymob,why?

April 15, 2012

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Orbot used to work great on my rooted HTC Thunderbolt with CM7. Now Orbot says it is connected to the Tor network, but using the check feature I cannot reach the check page or any other page in any browser when used with Tor. What happened?

April 16, 2012

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hi, i installed orbot on my galaxy young Android phone with 2.3.6 Android version. i put all settings and followed all the orders, but i see this ERROR when i active my Orbot; "Warning:Error starting transparent ..." Help please.

April 16, 2012

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hi, i installed orbot on my galaxy young Android phone with 2.3.6 Android version. i put all settings and followed all the orders, but i see this ERROR when i active my Orbot; "Warning:Error starting transparent ..." Help please.