Install, verify, harden. Once, then never again.
Everything else on this site assumes the browser in front of you is genuine and configured sensibly. That takes about twenty minutes once and is never repeated.
Download from the Tor Project site and nowhere else. Not a software portal, not a mirror, not a forwarded link, and not a paid search result. A modified build behaves exactly like the real one right up until it does something you did not want, and there is no way to spot the difference by looking. Type the project address rather than searching for it, since advertisements for browser downloads are a known route for modified copies.
The project signs each release and publishes a small signature file beside the download. Checking it proves the bytes on your disk are the bytes they published, which is the one thing you cannot establish any other way. Import the key, run the verify command, read one line of output. A warning that the key is not certified with a trusted signature is normal and does not mean failure.
The bundle ships on its most permissive setting. Open the shield menu and choose Safest, which turns scripting off everywhere. Nearly every serious browser compromise of the last decade arrived through scripting, and turning it off removes that surface rather than reducing it. Pages look plainer, which is the setting doing its job.
No extensions, no ad blockers, no privacy add ons. The bundle is configured as a whole so that users look alike, and every addition makes yours more distinguishable. An extension promising more privacy delivers less by existing.
Updates carry security fixes and the browser handles them on its own. A version left alone for months is the most common preventable weakness on a machine that is otherwise set up carefully.
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