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I use Tails as the os for my work laptop. I would like to prevent the tor browser from being able to connect to distracting websites (reddit, fivethirtyeight, some webcomics, ect).

Ive tried edditing the /ect/hosts file, but that doesnt seem to work.

Im perfectly happy with a temporary fix that I have to re-apply when I boot up my laptop. As long as I can make and follow a checklist each time, the gains in productivity make front loading the work worth it.

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Two options:

  1. Write a SOCKS proxy shim to sit between the real SOCKS port and Tor Browser and a Control Port shim to sit between the Control Port Filter and Tor Browser and report the fake SOCKS port in replies.

  2. Use uBlock Origin's 'My Filters' option to block requests to places you don't want to connect to. (Tools -> Add-Ons -> uBlock Origin Preferences -> Show Dashboard -> My Filters tab)

Both of the above will harm your anonymity, as other Tails users will load resources from those sites but you wouldn't making your browsing pattern unique.

I don't believe there is a way that this could be approached (without some serious software engineering work) that doesn't harm your anonymity.

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  • Could you elaberate a bit on to what degree adding a filter in Ublock will harm my anonymity? Would filtering just reddit be less harmfull then blocking my cities newspaper website?
    – cassisback
    Jun 1, 2017 at 19:04
  • If you load some webpage and it loads content from Reddit or Facebook or whatever (buttons to share content) then the exit used for the site could notice that you don't load them, while all other users do. So blocking makes you stand out. The exit if used for more than one site might be able to over-time identify your traffic from others.
    – cacahuatl
    Jun 2, 2017 at 10:48
  • Would using forbid scrips globaly prevent those buttons from sharing info anyways?
    – cassisback
    Jun 4, 2017 at 16:48
  • Not necessarily since you may still be loading resources, e.g. the image from those external websites even if there's no javascript involved.
    – cacahuatl
    Jun 4, 2017 at 20:32

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