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I'm a Tor newbie using the current version (5.5.4) on Windows 10.

I'm using it so that I can browse as if from other countries. I will be changing the country frequently so I want to specify the country on the command line, not in the configuration file.

On Windows, Tor is started by 'firefox.exe', so I type:

firefox.exe ExitNodes {GB}

This starts Tor, but appears to just cause FF to try to browse to the site 'ExitNodes'.

Won't that command just pass my config option to FF and not to Tor - but that is what the documentation tells me to do (as far as I can tell).

What am I doing wrong?

Or is there some other way to specify ExitNodes without restarting the browser?

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  • Try prefixing the option with --. You might also need to use quotes for the country code (I can never remember with the Windows command line... ). So something like firefox.exe --ExitNodes "{GB}".
    – Richard Horrocks
    Commented Apr 13, 2016 at 16:41
  • Thanks for suggestion @RichardHorrocks - I tried those, both with and w/o the quotes, but my exit was still in random country, not GB. Some improvement though: ff no longer tries to browse to ExitNodes.
    – Tom
    Commented Apr 13, 2016 at 16:55
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    No, passing Tor arguments to Firefox is totally not going to do what you want. The right way to change Tor's config without restarting Tor is via the control port, but this isn't something that ordinary users are expected to do. In this case, if you want to pick your country, maybe you will be happier using a VPN or something that aims to provide that feature?
    – Roger Dingledine
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 3:16
  • How do you make firefox.exe start tor?
    – v7d8dpo4
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 8:30
  • @v7d8dpo4 that's how it works on Windows - you run firefox.exe to start tor.
    – Tom
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 14:04

1 Answer 1

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Passing Tor arguments to Firefox is totally not going to do what you want. The right way to change Tor's config on Windows without restarting Tor is via the control port (for example, by using a python script written with the stem library), but this isn't something that ordinary users are expected to do.

In this case, if you want to pick your country so often, maybe you will be happier using a VPN or something that aims to provide that feature? Tor focuses on anonymity and security, rather than the ability to frequently change what country you appear to be coming from.

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