A Newbie's guide to TOR

TOR is an Onion router based system that will hide your ip, location, and other internet credentials from other parties. Due to the recent bills passed by congress, or if your government censores you you should get TOR. This guide starts as one splits in 2 peices for a short duration that rejoin at a later point that has another optional fork at the end.
***************************GETTING TOR***************************
Method 1:go to https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en and get the Vidalia Bundle and install it. Configure to run at startup, and install all extras(no crapware here, only what is completely nesessary)
Method 2:go to http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1088 and hit the download link at the top, then follow the "How to extract" instructions
***************************CONFIGURING TOR***************************
1. open either PortableTOR.exe(method 2) or open TOR from the start menu(Method 1)
2. open the Vadilia control panel
3. under the general tab check all the boxes EXCEPT "start Proxy application when Vadilia starts"
4. make sure that the path to TOR.exe is in \App\PortableTor\Tor.exe
5. close the control panel, click "start TOR"
6. THIS STEP HAS A PROCEDURE FOR CHROME AND FIREFOX
CHROME
a. install Proxy Switchy! from the chrome web store
b. go to the proxy switchy! options menu
c. rename the profile to "TOR"
d. make sure to have the following listed under manual configuration:all of the boxes to the left say "localhost", and then make sure all the boxes to the right say "8118" EXCEPT the bottom one which is "9050"
e. hit save
f. go to the "General" tab
g. check "quick switch"
h. check "binary switch" then make "profile 1" direct connection and make profile 2 "TOR"
i. DONE!

FIREFOX
a. go to https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/index.html.en in firefox
b. hit the link to "install stable"
c. let it install like any other firefox addon
d. tada!
STEP 8
go to https://check.torproject.org/ to verify that everything works correctly
NOTE: in chrome, you can also go to the proxy settings, LAN settings, and the advanced proxy setting and input the info from step "D" from the CHROME guide to make chrome use TOR all the time also i recomend pinning the https://check.torproject.org/ site to verify tor is on(don't forget to reload if you hit proxy switchy! though)