How to Chain Proxies to Mask Your IP Address and Remain Anonymous on the Web

A proxy is a server that lets a client to connect to it and forward its traffic. This enables a certain "layer" of protection by masking your IP. An IP address can be used to learn your location and track you on the Internet, thus eliminating any form of anonymity that you may have.

Now, I'm a strong believer that people should be allowed to remain anonymous on the Web. I don't like that sites need to track how many hours a day I spend watching YouTube, or how I do my online banking, especially with every company crumbling under the fingers of feds when they ask for any form of information. So your personal data is just out there, in untrustworthy hands because they're just as corrupt as everyone else.

Proxy Chains is a cool tool that allows you to chain multiple proxies to connect to each other and then wrap your program of choice and connect to the Internet. This masks your IP with many layers and can be a good tool when practicing anonymity.

In this Null Byte, we're going to be using the tool Proxy Chains to link proxies and use it on the Firefox web browser to mask our IP and maintain our anonymity with a nice vTutorial. This applies to Mac and Linux operating systems.

Download Proxy Chains

First, we need to download the Proxy Chains tool and install it before we start the video. Open a terminal for the following commands.

Enter this command to extract the package:

    sudo tar -zxvf

Now change directories and configure:

cd && ./configure

Compile the Proxy Chains source code:

sudo make

Install Proxy Chains:

  sudo make install

Configure and Use Proxy Chains

Now time for the video portion of this tutorial...

Commands in the Video

1. nano proxychains.conf
2. Add proxies to the configuration file (get proxies with this)
3. proxychains curl -s http://checkips.dyndns.org

To run Firefox through it, run:

    proxychains firefox

That will wrap around Firefox's connection and run it through the chain. If your IP has changed, congratulations!

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Photo by THERKD