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privacy1 min read

Using Telegram through a Tor SOCKS5 proxy

When Telegram is blocked on a network, you can route the desktop client through Tor's local SOCKS5 proxy.

Install Tor

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S tor

Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install tor

Start the service

sudo systemctl start tor.service

Tor listens on port 9050 by default.

Point Telegram at it

In Telegram, go to Settings > Advanced > Connection type, then:

  1. Select Use custom proxy.
  2. Choose SOCKS5.
  3. Set Hostname to 127.0.0.1.
  4. Set Port to 9050.

Save it, and Telegram will connect through Tor.

You can also open this link to fill in the same settings: https://t.me/socks?server=127.0.0.1&port=9050

Keep in mind that this gets you past the block, but Tor alone doesn't make you anonymous. Traffic correlation and a misconfigured client can still expose you.