Tor Browser with RSelenium in Linux/Windows

Question

Looking to use RSelenium and Tor using my Linux machine to return the Tor IP (w/Firefox as Tor Browser). This is doable with Python, but having trouble with it in R. Can any

Answer 1

Something like the following should work:

browserP <- paste0(Sys.getenv('HOME'),"/Desktop/tor-browser_en-US/Browser/firefox")
jArg <- paste0("-Dwebdriver.firefox.bin='", browserP, "'")
selServ <- RSelenium::startServer(javaargs = jArg)

UPDATE:

This worked for me on windows. Firstly run the beta version:

checkForServer(update = TRUE, beta = TRUE, rename = FALSE)

Next open a version of the tor browser manually.

library(RSelenium)
browserP <- "C:/Users/john/Desktop/Tor Browser/Browser/firefox.exe"
jArg <- paste0("-Dwebdriver.firefox.bin=\"", browserP, "\"")
pLoc <- "C:/Users/john/Desktop/Tor Browser/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Browser/profile.meek-http-helper/"
jArg <- c(jArg, paste0("-Dwebdriver.firefox.profile=\"", pLoc, "\""))
selServ <- RSelenium::startServer(javaargs = jArg)

remDr <- remoteDriver(extraCapabilities = list(marionette = TRUE))
remDr$open()
remDr$navigate("https://check.torproject.org/")

> remDr$getTitle()
[[1]]
[1] "Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor."

Answer 2

Caveat: I have not tested extensively, but it seems to work.

Relying on some ideas from @Ashley72 but avoiding manual setups and copying (as well as now defunct functions from Rselenium needed for the solution from @jdharrison) and some ideas from https://indranilgayen.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/make-rselenium-work-with-r/ adjust the following profile options (I usually adjust a number of other options, but they do not seem relevant for the question):

fprof <- makeFirefoxProfile(list(network.proxy.socks = "127.0.0.1", # for proxy settings specify the proxy host IP  
network.proxy.socks_port = 9150L, # proxy port. Last character "L" for specifying integer is very important and if not specified it will not have any impact
network.proxy.type = 1L, # 1 for manual and 2 for automatic configuration script. here also "L" is important    
network.proxy.socks_version=5L, #ditto     
network.proxy.socks_remote_dns=TRUE))

Then you start the server as usual:

rD <- rsDriver(port = 4445L, browser = "firefox", version = "latest", geckover = "latest", iedrver = NULL, phantomver = "2.1.1",
               verbose = TRUE, check = TRUE, extraCapabilities = fprof) # works for selenium server: 3.3.1 and geckover: 0.15.0; Firefox: 52
remDr <- rD[["client"]]
remDr <- rD$client
remDr$navigate("https://check.torproject.org/") # should confirm tor is setup
remDr$navigate("http://whatismyip.org/") # should confirm tor is setup

As you see, I have not made changes to the marionette option. I have no idea what the implications might be. Please comment.

EDIT: the Tor Browser has to be up and running, it seems. Otherwise, the browser opened by Rselenium gives an error "proxy server refusing connection."

Answer 3

This works in MacOS Sierra.

First you need to configure both the Firefox and Tor browser Manual Proxy.

Go to your Preferences>Advanced>Network>Settings

Set SOCKS Host: 127.0.0.1 Port:9150 Check -> on SOCKS v5 in the browser menu bar.

You will also need to have Tor Browser open whilst running the R script in Rstudio ....otherwise you will get a message in the firefox browser "The proxy server is refusing connections"

You will also need to copy the name of your firefox profile in the script profile-name

Open Finder and got to /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/profile-name

My R test script

 require(RSelenium)

    fprof <- getFirefoxProfile("/Users/**username**/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/nfqudbv2.default-1484451212373",useBase=TRUE)

    remDrv <- remoteDriver( browserName = "firefox"
                            , extraCapabilities = fprof)

    remDrv$open()
    remDrv$navigate("https://check.torproject.org/")

This will open an instance of the Firefox browser with the message "Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor."