In Ubuntu, you can install both the TOR service and the TOR Browser (launcher). The launcher script is a simpler way to install the browser with all the updates.

sudo apt-get install tor torbrowser-launcher

Since we are hosting a Blog, we can mirror it on TOR

   HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
   HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80

Once done and restarted, Tor will serve the content that is being served up by lighttpd. To find your onion address, enter the following:

sudo cat /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname

Going a bit further… TOR works by setting up a SOCKS proxy that process your requests. Since some apps offer less support for SOCKS proxies, a compromise is to use privoxy as an HTTP proxy that then forwards requests to the TOR SOCKS proxy.

sudo apt-get install privoxy
sudo vi /etc/privoxy/config # uncomment the following
   forward-socks5t            /     127.0.0.1:9050 .
   forward         192.168.*.*/     .
   forward            10.*.*.*/     .
   forward           127.*.*.*/     .
   forward           localhost/     .

As a quick test to see if it’s working, you can try the following with various browsers. Good onions would be the one harvested from the hostname file above, or the TorProject’s offical onion of expyuzz4wqqyqhjn.onion

# Pick the browser you want...
# browser="seamonkey"
# browser="dillo"
browser="lynx"
http_proxy="http://127.0.0.1:8118" \
 no_proxy="127.0.0.1" \
 $browser \
 http://{some_onion}

Keep in mind, beyond the quick test, you really do want to use the TorBrowser for better anonymity and security.