Introduction🔗

This is a short guide on how to use Tor through an HTTP proxy.

The setup uses three components:

• arti
• g3proxy
• Any software that supports an HTTP proxy

The diagram below shows the overall flow.

  
  ---
config:
  look: handDrawn
  theme: neutral
---
flowchart LR
  A[Client] -->|HTTP-protocol| B[g3] -->|SOCKS-protocol| C[arti] --> D[TOR-Network] --> G[Original Destination]
  E[Client] -->|HTTP-protocol| B[g3]
  F[Client] -->|HTTP-protocol| C[arti]

  D[TOR-Network] --> H[Original Destination]
  D[TOR-Network] --> I[Original Destination]

  J[Client] -->|SOCKS-protocol| C[arti]

Arti🔗

Quote from the Arti homepage:

Arti is a complete rewrite of the C Tor codebase, and it is currently under active development. It is written in Rust, and it is designed to be modular, reusable, and easy to audit.

You need to build Arti before you can run it 😄.
I am using an Ubuntu-based distribution, so this guide uses apt.

This is a short summary of the original Compiling Arti guide.

# clone the repo
git clone https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/arti.git

# navigate to the directory
cd arti

## install some necessary packages 
sudo apt install libsqlite3-dev

cargo build -p arti --release

g3proxy🔗

You can either download prebuilt g3proxy packages or build it yourself.
I chose to build it.

git clone https://github.com/bytedance/g3
cd g3

sudo apt install liblua5.4-dev capnproto libc-ares-dev

cargo build

g3proxy has many more configuration options than shown here. See the project README.

Config🔗

g3proxy requires a configuration file.

---
runtime:
  thread_number: 2

log: stdout

server:
  - name: http_proxy
    escaper: default
    type: http_proxy
    listen:
      address: "[::]:10087" # <<<< http-proxy listening port
    tls_client: { }   # Open layer-7 https forward forwarding support

escaper:
  - name: default
    type: proxy_socks5
    proxy_addr: "[::1]:9150" # <<<< arti listening port

Runtime🔗

After both tools (Arti and g3proxy) are built, open two shells: run Arti in one shell and g3proxy in the other.

Shell 1: Arti🔗

/datadisk/git-repos/arti $
# target/release/arti proxy
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO arti::subcommands::proxy: Starting Arti 1.5.0 in SOCKS proxy mode on localhost port 9150 ...
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO tor_memquota::mtracker: Memory quota tracking initialised max=8.00 GiB low_water=6.00 GiB
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO arti_client::client: Using keystore from "/home/alex/.local/share/arti/keystore"
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO tor_dirmgr: Marked consensus usable.
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO tor_dirmgr: Loaded a good directory from cache.
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO arti::subcommands::proxy: Sufficiently bootstrapped; system SOCKS now functional.
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO arti::socks: Listening on [::1]:9150.
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO arti::socks: Listening on 127.0.0.1:9150.
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO tor_dirmgr: Marked consensus usable.
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO tor_dirmgr: Directory is complete. attempt=1
2025-09-01T15:11:17Z  INFO tor_guardmgr::guard: We have found that guard [scrubbed] is usable.
2025-09-01T15:11:18Z  INFO arti::reload_cfg: Successfully reloaded configuration.
2025-09-01T15:11:28Z  INFO tor_guardmgr::guard: We have found that guard [scrubbed] is usable.

Shell 2: g3proxy🔗

/datadisk/git-repos/g3 $
# target/debug/g3proxy --config-file g3proxy/examples/chain_socks_proxy/g3proxy.yaml

Now configure your browser to use the HTTP proxy at 127.0.0.1:10087, then test with curl.

  
  ---
config:
  theme: neutral
---
flowchart LR
  A[`curl`] -->|`127.0.0.1:10087`| B[g3] -->|`SOCKS`| C[arti] --> D[TOR-Network] -->|`https`| G[https://check.torproject.org/]

Shell 3🔗

# curl -sSL \
    --proxy 127.0.0.1:10087 \
    https://check.torproject.org/ \
    |egrep -i cong

      Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor.
      Congratulations. This browser is configured to use Tor.

Some Thoughts🔗

Because curl also supports SOCKS, you can point curl directly to Arti.
However, many applications support only HTTP proxying and not SOCKS. For those applications, this setup is useful.
There are also other tools for HTTP(S)-to-SOCKS translation, for example Privoxy forward-socks5. I chose g3 because it is relatively small and written in Rust 😄.

Update🔗

Since Arti 1.7.0 (October 30, 2025), HTTP CONNECT is supported.
That means Arti can be used as an HTTP proxy endpoint, not only as a SOCKS5 endpoint.