How to use TOR browser as SOCKS proxy for other devices on my LAN?

I have installed the TOR browser on my mac and configured the networking to use port: 9150 so browsing using Safari etc uses TOR and I can test that using the test at the Tor project test site.

I would like other browsers to be able to direct their traffic via my Mac, but can’t seem to get it working.

First I tried to connect to 9150 on the Mac and use that as a socks proxy for the other device, but it does not seem to connect (no firewall configured on mac).

Next tried “Internet Sharing” from the Mac. I can connect fine, but the TOR test above fails.

What am I doing wrong / how can I achieve this?

1 Answer

In the case of Tor Browser, Tor listens for SOCKS requests on the special loopback address 127.0.0.1 which cannot be accessed from other devices in your home network.

You can do what you want using the Tor Expert Bundle. You will need to add the following line to the Tor configuration file torrc:

SOCKSListenAddress [IP address]

Then configure your other devices to use the SOCKS5 proxy [IP address]:9050.