How to open provider-blocked sites and hidden onion-services in the main browser (Firefox)

And at the same time support the Tor project at no particular cost

I am a longtime fan of the Tor network and the opportunities it provides. I prefer visiting sites without supervision from above, without the restrictions imposed by certain individuals trying to control my life. And I like the presence of hidden services, although I practically do not use them, but the very fact of the possibility of launching such a service pleases the internal cryptanarchist.

Therefore, I always run an expert set that I set up to work as an intermediate node - this way I make a modest contribution to the support of the Tor network. In the host settings, you can limit the maximum traffic that will be consumed by the needs of the network.

Of course, the highest privacy is provided by the use of the Whonix system., and to whom it’s inconvenient - at least they go to sites through Tor Browser. But I read the criminal code, and I have no reason to hide so much - I just sometimes want to go to the site that my provider has closed access to, or open a service with the .onion domain.

Because running Tor Browser every time for this purpose is not very convenient, I don’t use Opera and Yandex browsers, and the common anti-blocking solutions (friGate, etc.) didn’t work for me for some reason - I developed my own system, which allows opening both blocked sites and hidden services.

I use the Firefox browser, and for the system to work, you need to install only one plugin - FoxyProxy. If the Tor node is already up and running, then by default it will provide a proxy service at 127.0.0.1: 9050. Using this proxy, you can go to blocked sites and to .onion domains.

In order for the proxy to be used only in these cases, you need to configure the FoxyProxy plugin. It is just designed for selective use of proxy servers based on rules. In our case, the rules will be simple - enable proxies using the domain mask.



In the main window of the plugin you need to add a new proxy. In the add window, in the first tab you only need to come up with a name (I chose “onion”), in the second tab, select the manual configuration and set the ip address and port (127.0.0.1: 9050), and also tick SOCKS.
In the third, we will add a few rules, upon observance of which this proxy will be turned on, sending requests through the Tor network.





To create a rule, you need to come up with a name and a domain mask for it. For hidden Tor sites, the mask looks like *.onion/*. After saving the rule, all sites with the .onion domain will be opened through the proxy 127.0.0.1: 9050 - that is, through the Tor network.



Similarly, sites are added that are blocked by the provider (example:) *lurkmore.to/*.

No further action is required - when any of the rules is followed, FoxyProxy forces Firefox to send requests through the Tor network. If you need high-quality privacy, then it's better to use the Tor browser - it takes into account most of the Firefox holes. Of course, Whonix with embedded virtual machines remains the best solution - but this is the choice of hackers, dishonest people and heavy paranoids.