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How to Install Tor Browser on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

In this article we summarize how to install Tor Browser on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic.

Posted by Yakov Boyko on March 28, 2020

Here we describe how one can install Tor and Tor Browser Launcher on Ubuntu 18. The simplest way to do it is via its official repository. To prepare for the installation, lets add the repository to Ubuntu's list.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following lines to the file (for versions of Ubuntu other than 18.04 LTS, these entries will be slightly different)


deb https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org bionic main
deb-src https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org bionic main

Alternatively, one can create a separate file and add the entries there

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tor-sources.list

After this, we are ready to proceed with the installation itself.

1. Download the encryption key. In case the key is changed upon your reading this article, please navigate to https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ to see the new key. Modify the name of the key in the command accordingly. In our case, we execute

curl https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89.asc -O

The flag of the command serves to save the key in the current directory.

2. Import the key into GPG

sudo gpg --import A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89.asc

3. Export the key and add it to keyring

gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -

4. Update packages and install Tor and its components

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring torbrowser-launcher

5. Try launching Tor Launcher. After a few moments and verifying the key, the browser window should appear


torbrowser-launcher

If you happen to get an error about not being able to verify the key, please see the following discussion:

https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher/issues/263

In short, you will need to manually refresh the keyring by executing


gpg --homedir "$HOME/.local/share/torbrowser/gnupg_homedir/" --refresh-keys --keyserver pgp.mit.edu

This can be done either right away or after uninstalling the Tor components. In the latter case, you will need to remove the Tor components installed in 4., refresh the keys and then install the Tor and its components again. The browser should then launch successfully.