When you start TorChat for the first time you see a list of available chat partners. The list is empty except for the identity of the logged in user.

New contacts are added with a right-click and the selection of Add Contact from the context menu.

Setup is a bit more complicated considering that the unique ID of each user needs to be added. It is also important to add a display name for easier user identification. That’s different from many other Instant messengers where it is easier to add contacts by importing them.

Online users are indicated with a green icon in front of their username. A double-click on an icon opens a chat window to talk to the selected contact.

TorChat supports file transfers which can be started with a right-click on the chat window. It currently does not offer “gimmicks” lick chat smileys for instance.

But what are the advantages of using TorChat? The use of TOR ensures that nobody can monitor the Internet traffic to find out with whom you are chatting and sharing files and where they and you are located in the world. TorChat initiates a “fully encrypted peer-to-peer connection” between two Tor clients which means that the traffic is never leaving the TOR network. That’s different from how many people perceive TOR. For web surfing and TOR, it is necessary to leave the network at some time to connect to the destination. With TorChat, that’s not necessary.

TorChat is a portable application for Windows and Linux that can be downloaded directly from the project website at Google Code.

The default client is offered at the TOR Project site for Windows, Mac OS X and Unix variants. The standard client should work fine for most usage scenarios.

Advanced TOR, as the name suggests, improves the capabilities of the TOR client. The free portable software for Windows offers an easier to configure interface.

Users who are in a hurry can connect to the TOR network right away. The program establishes a local proxy port automatically, and offers to restrict connections from certain IP addresses or IP ranges.

On top of that, and this is a feature that TOR is not offering right now, is the ability to force TOR on specific processes in Windows.

advanced tor

Some applications are capable of bypassing proxy restrictions, which would mean that the real IP of the user would be revealed. Forcing those applications to use TOR will prevent this from happening.

The feature is currently labeled beta, and works the following: The application is intercepted by Advanced TOR, and Winsock calls are redirected to a dll of the program.

advanced tor force tor

Advanced users will notice that the software client is highly configurable. It is possible to switch identities with a click, force exit nodes, configure node families, define specific connection details like bandwith rates and the maximum number of connections.

There is a lot to explorer and no setting is further away than two clicks.

Windows users who make use of Tor extensively may want to try out Advanced Tor, especially because of the Force TOR option but also because it’s a little bit more accessible.

Advanced Tor is available for download at the Sourceforge project website.

Torchat utilizes the power of the Tor network to create a peer to peer instant messaging system, effectively a secure anonymous and encrypted instant messenger that runs right of the box. The software program is fully portable and can be run from external drives or local hard drives.

One limitation of the current version is that the listening port cannot be changed unless the user is doing it in the source which would mean that it would have to be compiled again. The author promised to add a configuration option to change the listening port of the application in a later version.

Once started the user is greeted with a window similar to the one on the above screenshot with the difference that no other contacts are added obviously. To add users one needs their Torchat ID which is a series of random chars, a nickname to identify the person and a initial message. The easiest way to exchange these would be by email, website, phone or other Instant Messengers. Paranoids will probably exchange them during a real-life meeting.

The author has some plans for his Instant Messenger. He plans multi-user chats, file transfers, customization options and block lists among other things. One to look out for.

The aim is to provide every Internet user with the opportunity to surf the Internet without fearing censorship or prosecution. The Freedom Stick basically contains a version of TOR and a Firefox browser that can be used to connect to the Internet through The Onion Network.

It was designed with ease of use in mind. Just download the archive from the Chinese Wall page of the German Chaos Computer Club and unpack the contents on the USB device. If autostart is enabled the system should automatically start the Vidalia Control Panel which establishes the connection with the Tor network. Firefox is opened i that connection is successful and the user can surf the Internet using the anonymity of the Tor network.

The stick is only working on Windows operating systems. Linux users on the other hand usually know about these things and are able to implement them easily as well.