Using Tor from Firefox/1.1 (Deerpark)

Firefox/1.1 finally has support for sending SOCKS5 requests with DNS names, thus Tor can work without a proxy. You can get Firefox/1.1 here but beware that, at the time of writing, it's still in beta. The final release is expected by about August 2005 but beta software may crash, eat your config, disable all your extensions and/or email elephant porn to all your friends. You have been warned. (That aside, I'm using it as my main browser with no issues except a lack of Greasemonkey).

Also note that without Privoxy your browser will send full User-Agent strings which can be used in an intersection attack. This probably isn't too serious but you might wish to look into ways to change the Firefox User-Agent string. (try Googling for extensions.) Sadly, the rest of the standard headers are probably enough to identify your browser so this might be something you'll have to live with.

Setup

Firstly, Edit→Preferences→Connection Settings and make the dialog look like this:

Now, type “about:config” into the address bar, as if it were a URL and hit enter. The resulting page has a text entry at the top labeled “Filter”. In it, type “socks_remote_dns” (don't hit enter).

As you type the list of settings should shrink until there's only one. Double click it and it should go bold and its value should be “true”.

You're all done. To disable Tor you need only change the settings in the preferences dialog, there's no need to fiddle with the about:config page unless you're switching to a different SOCKS proxy.