Now I know What Tor is, how do I connect to it?

Well the first step is to stop, take a breathe, and think if you are truly prepared to make this step. I personally warn people that once you are connected there is no going back, the things you will see, and the people you will meet will stay with you forever. Now after heading that warning if you still insist on making the first step to disconnection from the world you know there are a few ways to start. First things first, there is a browser bundle available from the Tor main page that will allow you to connect and access tor quickly and easily, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS FOR THE SERIOUS PERSON. It will connect you and you will be safe, but you will not be 100% safe, and believe me you want that. However if you just want to connect and look around a bit head on over to this link and follow the instructions provided. https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
Or watch this quick video also provided on the page above.

Now for the person who is more concerned about protecting themselves the process is a little more complicated, but not too bad. First go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/new/ and download and install firefox, if you can't do this with out a tutorial, well you shouldn't be on the internet anyway. Next you want to go to this link https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/index.html.en and download and install the tor button to firefox. *Note- it helps if you go to the link in firefox* Now that that is taken care of you need the Vidalia Control panel. Vidalia basically allows you to connect to or disconnect from the network using a GUI interface. You can download it from this link https://www.torproject.org/projects/vidalia.html.en Now if you have a mac or Linux based system I recommend downloading Arm, it is a way to monitor your Tor system stats and usage. https://www.torproject.org/projects/arm.html.en * If you have Windows skip this step* Now all this is taken care of watch this video

When you have done all necessary steps go to this link to make sure you are connected http://torstatus.blutmagie.de/ On the next post I will show where to start once connected.