Arche Twist

OperaTor - Opera + Tor. Surf anonymously

Submitted by archetwist on 6 December, 2007 - 17:50
OperaTor
OperaTor

OperaTor is a portable software bundle which allows you to browse the web anonymously. It combines the power of the Opera Browser, Tor and Polipo.

With OperaTor no data will be stored at the computer you plugged your portable memory into.

Changes in the current release

Subscribe to updates via the OperaTor RSS feed.

Download OperaTor 3.1

Keep your Web surfing private with this portable, anonymous browser.

PC World

OperaTor weights 7 MB and is Windows only. After the download is finished:

  • extract the archive to the location of your choice
  • launch the OperaTor.exe file to start all the necessary applications

Please do not link directly to the files. Link to this page instead.

Important

The only protocols which OperaTor anonymizes are HTTP and HTTPS, thus if you want to stay anonymous you should avoid using other Opera features (e.g. Java, JavaScript, Bittorrent, integrated e-mail and IRC clients).

OperaTor comes with absolutely no warranty. It is the user's responsibility to test whether the connection is secure. Users should keep in mind that OperaTor relies on Tor (The Onion Router) and Polipo and any security questions should be directed to their developers.

Troubleshooting and bugs

If you seek support or want to report a bug, please use the Troubleshooting forum. Do not post your bug reports on the current page as they will be removed.

FAQ

Softpedia guarantees that OperaTor is 100% CLEAN, which means it does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

Softpedia

According to my antivirus software OperaTor contains a trojan/virus.
CNet says OperaTor has been tested spyware free and Softpedia gave OperaTor its 100% Clean award. Major antivirus vendors, like GData, Kaspersky, McAfee and Microsoft, confirm that OperaTor contains no malicious software.
OperaTor does not work. What do I do?
Maybe some other application is using OperaTor's default 8118 and 9050 ports. If so, you have to manually assign a different port for Polipo and/or Tor by modyfing their configuration files - config for Polipo and torrc for Tor. Do not forget to synchronize Opera's and Polipo's settings by going to Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Proxy servers in the Opera browser.
Also, it may be your firewall that is blocking the ports - disable it temporarily and see what happens.
Are IRC/e-mail connections sent through Tor?
No, see the Important information section.
Am I totally anonymous?
No, there is no perfect solution. See So I'm totally anonymous if I use Tor?.
Whenever I close and reopen OperaTor all my pages are lost.
Sessions (which include information about open pages) are not saved by default. Changing this behaviour is not recommended, though here is how you can do it: set DeleteHistory to 0 in the operator.ini file, open Opera's Preferences and on the General tab, under Startup choose Continue from last time.
Can I switch to a different IP during the session?
No, unfortunately you cannot. This may change in the future.
Is it possible to temporarily disable Tor?
Yes, disable the Enable proxy servers option. This will switch OperaTor back to your real IP.
What about OperaTor for Linux/Mac?
I do not plan to release such versions in the nearest future. To install Tor on a Linux or Mac system please follow the Installing Tor on Mac OS X and Installing Tor on Linux/BSD/Unix guides.
How do I upgrade OperaTor to the new version?
Please see the instructions from this comment.

Excellent - though some little glitches found

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 31 December, 2007 - 23:07.

Works great. Thank you very much for this!!!

What doesn't work well is: Opera's widgets – I can download these but I can't launch them; some filesharing sites' functionality [download] gets blocked [Depositfiles]; search for new skins in Opera generates a connection closed error in the skin browser's window; Google's top link bar is not shown!? [Web Images Maps News Shopping Mail more]

Saving a web page as a single file to MHT in OperaTor

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 31 December, 2007 - 23:25.

The MHT format which allows you to save a web page as a single file to a *.mht file is supported by Opera. I usually save web pages this way. OperaTor saves to mht but also adds a profile subfolder. But when opened the mht files are displayed in OperaTor in a small 500px x 300px frame with scrollbars. This needs a fix. Thanks for your attention.

Google Error?

Submitted by Doc (not verified) on 23 February, 2008 - 02:59.

I think you may need to run a system scan for virus on =your= PC because I use Google cache pages all the time (10 seconds ago) and never received such an error.

Google error

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 1 January, 2008 - 02:00.

Google error: clicking on “cached” on the Google results page produces this error: “Sorry… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.”

Tor

Submitted by archetwist on 3 January, 2008 - 19:14.

The reason lies in Tor itself. See Google tells me I have spyware installed in the Tor's FAQ. Sorry, but I can't do anything about it.

How to make 'Save Sessions' work in OperaTor

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 1 January, 2008 - 19:02.

For “Save Sessions” to work, apart from setting DeleteSession from 1 to 0 in operator.ini, OperaTor also needs the following expressly set in Opera's Preferences. Crtl-F12 / General / Startup → then select ‘Continue from last time’ from the drop-down. Click OK to confirm. Works on my machine, so no guarantee.

Yes

Submitted by archetwist on 3 January, 2008 - 19:17.

You are correct. I will update the appriopriate FAQ entry.

Toggle Tor functionality

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 2 January, 2008 - 03:15.

To turn Tor off temporarily just remove the hook from the box in the bottom bar that reads ‘Enable proxy servers’. This will switch your IP back to your real IP.

No more URL Tooltips under cursor

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 2 January, 2008 - 20:13.

The URL tooltips that show the real adress in a small popup underneath a link when the cursor rests on it work no longer. Gone. And yes, I have tooltips enabled in Preferences. Wish I knew how to fix this…

Opera

Submitted by archetwist on 3 January, 2008 - 19:28.

This is Opera's new “feature” – the tooltips are off when the status bar is enabled. I will rearrange the bar to include the status field in the next version.

OperaTor for Linux

Submitted by bastardOperaTorFromHell (not verified) on 2 January, 2008 - 20:52.

Hi! What about OperaTor for Linux systems?

FreeBSD please (PC-BSD would

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on 19 May, 2008 - 16:42.

FreeBSD please (PC-BSD would be cool too)

Tor Network Fair Use / Download Manager

Submitted by Cuban Pete (not verified) on 3 January, 2008 - 00:50.

Fair use of the provided Tor Network means not putting unnecessary load on the network by engaging in heavy downloading. Dowonloading via the Tor Network is not encouraged and quite slow anyway. To download from within OperaTor get the excellent Orbitdownloader from www.orbitdownloader.com. Having it “integrate with Opera” won't work for OperaTor, probably because OperaTor is not an installed application. Just clicking the download links is not seen by Orbitdownloader, so nothing happens. Here's a workaround: In Orbitdownloader go to Tools / Prefences / Monitoring then put a checkmark in the topmost box for “Monitor Clipboard”. Now, when you right-click on your download link and select “COPY LINK ADDRESS” it is instantly recognized by Orbitdownloader as a download request and you can start the download from the dialog box and also enjoy the increased speed a download manager offers.

how to upgrade?

Submitted by jon (not verified) on 10 January, 2008 - 07:32.

Thank you for a Great program. I have a question. How do I upgrade to current version without losing my settings from previous version?

Great program, thank

Submitted by Mark (not verified) on 19 April, 2008 - 04:21.

Great program, thank you!

Major pet peeve of mine – why is it that there are never instructions on how to upgrade programs, packages, bundles, to a newer version? It's like it's a secret or something.

Anyhow, the major issue here is saving Opera's custom settings, bookmarks, passwords, menus, site specific settings, etc, and using them with a new version of Operator. It looks like by unzipping the new package over the old one all the Opera settings will be overwritten to the default ones.

So, what's the best way to upgrade to a new version of the OperaTor package? Install in a new directory and then try to import Opera's settings from the old one?

Thank you.

Backup

Submitted by archetwist on 21 April, 2008 - 01:58.

So, what's the best way to upgrade to a new version of the OperaTor package? Install in a new directory and then try to import Opera's settings from the old one?

There is no upgrade path as there is no installer :) . Just follow the instructions from the Backing Up Opera article and copy the selected files from inside the Opera\profile directory to the new location. And remember not to mess with the opera6.ini file :) .

Bookmarks can be easily exported/imported via the FileImport and Export menu.

Suggestions

Submitted by Earl (not verified) on 30 January, 2008 - 02:13.

I wonder if it would be possible to add the following to a future build (FYI: not familiar with either Provoxy or Tor. Please disregard if the suggestion cannot be made with current version OperaTor's programs):

Ability to enable/disable proxy on a per-site basis (probably done via “Edit Site Preferences…”. Of course, proxy would be set to “enabled” by default, unless specifically set).

Ability to edit the proxy list in OperaTor. Ex. add your own server to the list of proxies used.

Thank you.

You can do this by

Submitted by archetwist on 15 February, 2008 - 01:00.

You can do this by modifying Privoxy's forward-socks4a option. Open the OperaTor\Privoxy\config.txt file and find the following line:

forward-socks4a / localhost:9050 .

By adding the line shown below you tell Privoxy to make an exception and do not torrify connections to the example.com domain:

forward .example.com .

You can try a different approach. Delete the whole forward-socks4a entry and replace it by the following line:

forward-socks4a .example.com localhost:9050 .

This will torrify connections to the example.com domain only.

You can configure this in

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on 7 May, 2008 - 04:45.

You can configure this in opera's settings, so it will bypass the proxy for, let's say, *.ebay.com

Go to:

Tools, preferences, advanced, network, proxy servers, then check do not use proxy on the addresses below and list your sites.

OperaTor for mac?

Submitted by BillyD (not verified) on 10 February, 2008 - 01:22.

I assume the answer is no, but can you tell me if there is a version of OperaTor for mac osx? If not, do you know if there is something similar I could use for anonymous surfing?

Mac

Submitted by archetwist on 15 February, 2008 - 01:07.

To install Tor on a Mac follow the Running the Tor client on Mac OS X tutorial. To mimic OperaTor's features you would also need to configure Opera not to use external directories (meaning: outside its own directory).

UK IP

Submitted by dincz (not verified) on 15 February, 2008 - 23:51.

How can I force operator to use only UK IP addresses?

I don't think Tor can be

Submitted by archetwist on 20 February, 2008 - 02:51.

I don't think Tor can be configured that way.

False Positiv?

Submitted by SinanT (not verified) on 22 February, 2008 - 20:12.

Scanning the File on Virustotal i got this result:

http://www.virustotal.com/…00ee7afd1791

Can u tell us something about that?

100% clean

Submitted by archetwist on 22 February, 2008 - 22:21.

OperaTor got the 100% Clean Award from Softpedia. It was in June, though nothing changed since then ;) . I can only suspect that the reason some antivrus software warns you about OperaTor is because it has been built with AutoHotkey. More on this at the AuthoHotkey's forum.

Great!!

Submitted by singlebullet (not verified) on 1 March, 2008 - 15:40.

Fantastic idea, and works just great! One question though… is it ok to update the Opera browser along with this, or will that break anything in the overall functioning of OperaTor? thanks again for your excellent work.

portability

Submitted by archetwist on 2 March, 2008 - 05:11.

Thanks for the kind words. As to your question, you will loose portability by upgrading Opera manually (unless you know how to change its files :) ). I don't know if MakeOperaTor still works with the current versions of Opera, though it doesn't contain some changes I've made to OperaTor since releasing it.

Virus detecton

Submitted by Torry (not verified) on 4 March, 2008 - 19:43.

According to anti-virus the OperaTor download from this site contains the Trojan loader downloader.klb proceed with extreme caution.

OperaTor is clean!

Submitted by archetwist on 8 March, 2008 - 04:19.

Proof?

Next time please proceed with caution when posting a comment like this.

I've found virus too. The

Submitted by Ingermanland (not verified) on 10 May, 2008 - 17:41.

I've found virus too. The proof is below. http://www.journals.ru/…0/710292.jpg

AVG is wrong

Submitted by archetwist on 10 May, 2008 - 22:46.

This only proves AVG thinks it found a virus. AVG is wrong.

can i activate stunnel with operator ?

Submitted by free.netizen (not verified) on 9 March, 2008 - 22:00.

hello , thank you for this eccellent job , really thanks , can i activate stunnel with operator ? AND HOW ? OR HOW CAN I ENCRYPT ALL THE CONNECTIONS ?

please explain me step by step , i'am working in the human rights defence ,and i need your help !

thank you very much for your eccellent initiative !

Thank you for a great

Submitted by Mark (not verified) on 18 March, 2008 - 19:15.

Thank you for a great program!

I've been trying to use Tor, Privoxy and Opera separately but I always had problems running them, frequent crashes, configuration problems, etc. OperaTor runs great each and every time.

Which brings me to my general question: After starting Operator I often go to various IP finder sites and browser security sites and they all show the Tor exit node instead of my real IP, as expected. I've turned off all Java, plug-ins, Javascript, cookies and referrers from the bottom button bar.

Which of these functions will allow a website to see the real IP even though OperaTor is used? I know Java can show the real IP, but is it possible to get the IP by allowing Javascript too? How about cookies? If I allow cookies and sign in a web forum for example, can the website get a real IP only by using cookies and maybe cookies and Javascript together? I don't thing IP info is included in referrers.

Thank you very much for your efforts and your generous offer.

JavaScript

Submitted by archetwist on 22 March, 2008 - 03:14.

Your question about JavaScript and plug-ins is answered in the Tor wiki: So I'm totally anonymous if I use Tor?

Here is an excerpt:

Java, Javascript, Macromedia Flash and Shockwave, QuickTime, RealAudio, ActiveX controls, and VBScript are all known to be able to access local information about your operating system and local network. These technologies will work over proxies and can tunnel the information back to their source.

Javascript only

Submitted by Javascript User (not verified) on 8 April, 2008 - 16:18.

I read somewhere that it's Firefox that contains extra Javascript stuff that can reveal your true IP address with only Javascript enabled and all other plugins turned off. But I can't find any website that can actually prove this and reveal my true IP using Javascript only. Does anyone know of a site that proves that Javascript on its own can leak true IP info via Opera/Tor?

A lot of websites, blogs and forums nowadays require that you have Javascript turned on.

Even the captcha system used here seems to require cookies be turned on, but thankfully doesn't require Javascript.

Delete cookies

Submitted by archetwist on 9 April, 2008 - 23:54.

That's true. The CAPTCHA installed here requires your browser to accept cookies but you can always enable the Delete new cookies when exiting Opera option in the site or global Opera preferences.

change the 3rd line in

Submitted by a (not verified) on 18 April, 2008 - 16:23.

change the 3rd line in Privoxy/conf.txt to : actionsfile default.action

MakeOperaTor w/Opera 9.26,

Submitted by --- (not verified) on 24 March, 2008 - 20:09.

MakeOperaTor w/Opera 9.26, Tor 0.1.2.19, & Privoxy 3.0.8

Upon launch:

Privoxy Error

Privoxy(00000fb4) Fatal error: can't load actions file ‘.\default’: (error number 2). Note that beginning with Privoxy 3.0.7, actions files have to be specified with their complete names.

This program is great! It is

Submitted by offthewall (not verified) on 26 March, 2008 - 18:17.

This program is great! It is currently my favorite browser, I just wish I could manually change my IP whenever I felt like it.

Are files created on the host?

Submitted by Albert Hoffman (not verified) on 26 March, 2008 - 20:58.

Thanks for the combination of these great tools. How does OperaTor handle internet history and cache? Are any files (Temp, Registry etc.) created on the host computer? If so, what happens to them after exiting OperaTor?

Any files are created inside

Submitted by archetwist on 29 March, 2008 - 20:50.

Any files are created inside the OperaTor's folder. Cache and history files are deleted on exit unless you disable this behavior.

Are files created on the host?

Submitted by Albert Hoffman (not verified) on 3 April, 2008 - 18:51.

To clarify, when OperaTor is launched from a USB “pen-drive”, no files are created on the host computer hard drive?

Is it correct that history and cache are only written to the OperaTor folder on the USB drive?

RAM

Submitted by archetwist on 4 April, 2008 - 04:07.

They are of course written to the RAM too.

Newbie question: Does this

Submitted by Jeff (not verified) on 1 April, 2008 - 03:15.

Newbie question: Does this program hide my data transmission details from my employers, or is it just hiding an IP address from the web sites I am visiting?

local ISP

Submitted by archetwist on 4 April, 2008 - 04:16.

From the Tor wiki:

Note that all your local ISP can observe now is that you are communicating with Tor nodes. Similarly, servers in the Internet just see that they are being contacted by Tor nodes.
[…]
Tor prevents people watching your traffic locally (such as your ISP) from learning what information you're fetching and where you're fetching it from. It also stops them from deciding what you're allowed to learn and publish – if you can get to any part of the Tor network, you can reach any site on the Internet.

So, generally speaking, you are safe unless your computer has some kind of sniffing/spying software installed.

what a garbige

Submitted by mark (not verified) on 8 April, 2008 - 03:14.

isn't that stupid to say, that you can use this in internet-cafes? no internet cafe, library etc has open USB-Ports – due to security reasons.. that doesnt make much sense to me what you wrote above..

Great Program thanks :)

Submitted by OperaTor rules! (not verified) on 14 April, 2008 - 12:52.

Thanks for a superb program, it works like a charm on XPx86/x64, W2000 and Vista x86 SP1 platforms, and yes I use it only for personal adware privacy,

and would like to add that there are other methods besides “USB” to run OperaTor at an Internet Cafe or library.

Keep up the great work! :D

What about availability of

Submitted by @ (not verified) on 15 April, 2008 - 13:36.

What about availability of sourse code of MakeOperaTor?

Not associated with Tor

Submitted by Al Billings (not verified) on 16 April, 2008 - 01:14.

According to members of the Tor team that I asked about this software, it is not associated with Tor and they had not heard of it. This makes me wonder how legitimate it is…

OperaTor is clean. Period.

Submitted by archetwist on 16 April, 2008 - 13:18.

It is as legitimate as any other software using Tor. Remember the introductory text at the top of this page? It says OperaTor is a software bundle. If you still have any concerns read the comment I posted a month ago.

WWW