Download, install and configure I2p on Android

What do I expect from you by this point?

A basic understanding of what I2p is and how is it different from conventional Internet as well as tor. If you haven''t understood those basic concept, I suggest you read Page 1: Introduction to I2p to get to speed.

Download and install I2p on Android

To download and install I2p on Android, goto geti2p.net/download. Then scroll to the bottom untill you see Android logo. Click on Outside I2p to quickly begin the download. However, I do recommend you use the Fdroid repo if you can.

An apk file should be downloaded. Install it and you will have I2p installed on your phone.

Configuration and the first look

Open the app i2p from your app drawer.

Then tap on three dots on the top right and click on Settings. Then goto Bandwidth and Network option and Set Maximum Inbound and Maximum outbound speed to the appropriate value as per your network speed.


If you have a non-rooted android device, It is also necessary to Check on UPnP to automatically Open firewall ports.

Now, go back to the main screen and hold LONG PRESS TO START I2P and wait till it finds and connects to Peers. Note that it will take some time to connect. Patience is required as I2p is generally slower.

If you get an error that says Clock Skew by this much time it means that your system clock is not correctly configured. This warning can be ignored for a few seconds to a few minutes but clock skew by too long can cause problems.

Also, if you get an error Network:Firewalled you may wish to open Firewall ports for the Tunnels that you are using manually. In case of non-rooted Android devices, UPnP handles it automatically and can be ignored.

After you are connected, all the dots will be filled and you will see green status icon. At this point, it should look something like the image below,


At this point, you may want to goto Tunnels tab and start the I2P HTTP/HTTPS Proxy if it wasnt already started. Also see what port that Tunnel is being run which will be later needed to setup proxy.



Configuring Browsers

Firefox

First, install addons that will allow you to set proxy in your Firefox as well as another addon that disables scripts on the web. While being friendlier, it is still the fact that I2p is a darknet. So caution is paramount.

Two of the addons I recommend are 



Tapping them will take you to their installation page on Firefox. It is possible to set proxy settings globally but is discourage as you may forward data that you dont want forwarded to the I2p network accidentally.

Now, click on three dots that appear on the top right portion and click on Add-ons where your installed addons should appear as shown below,


Then click on Proxy Toggle from Your Add-ons section. Then a table form should appear where you can enter various options. In the Type field, select HTTP. In the Host enter 127.0.0.1. In the Port field, Enter the port number used in the HTTP/HTTPS proxy from the Client Tunnels sub-tab in the Tunnels Tab from the I2p app(In the 6th picture from the top of this page). Which happened to be 4444. Then, just press the back button, it will be saved automatically. 


Then again, click on the three dots from the top right and select Script Blocker Ultimate and select Block all.


Finally, just like how you selected Script Blocker Ultimate from the dotted context menu, select Proxy Toggle and the proxy to I2p will be enabled. Clicking once will enable proxy and clicking again will disable proxy. It will not give any acknowledgement.

Optional: Disable localhost forwarding through proxy in Firefox

It is not necessary to do so if you are using official Mozilla Firefox. However, there are certain modded Firefox build that forward localhost traffic through the proxy. It will cause problems with I2p. To disable this behavior, goto about:config (For security reasons, you cant just click on this link. You will need to copy paste the link manually into your browser) in firefox and search for network.proxy.allow_hijacking_localhost and set that to False. 

Chrome

There is no known way for chrome except to enable proxy systemwide which is discouraged.

Start browsing I2p websites

Open the I2p app and start I2p. After it is connected, Goto Addressbook Tab and click on a website. Unlike Tor, not all the websites are available for 24/7 in the I2p network so you may get some unable to connect issues.

One website I particularly have luck with is,

Be wary that it can be slower

If you were able to successfully browse .i2p websites, you can then continue to Page 4: Finding and exploring i2p darkweb websites

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