Day: February 12, 2024

Routing HexChat Through Tor

Posted on by Brody Rethy

Note: Hexchat is dead as of 2.16.2, The Final Release on February 9th 2024. Keep in mind, this could mean that HexChat accumulates unfixed vulnerabilities or bugs going into the future. If you are using IRC + tor for a “secure” use case, consider using an alternative, such as irssi or weechat.

  1. sudo apt install tor hexchat
  2. Run the tor command to start the tor service on 127.0.0.1:9050.
    • Keep this running in a background terminal.
  3. Start HexChat
  4. Connect to any IRC server.
    • This is required in order to access the HexChat menus.
  5. In the new window, select Settings and then Preferences. Hit the option Network setup.
  6. Under the hostname field, type in: 127.0.0.1 and in port type in: 9050. Change the Type dropdown to SOCKS5
  7. Next, fully close and reopen HexChat. Ensure that it is PROPERLY closed, and then reopened.