tor: how to have different ip address for every page request?

Question

I installed the tor bundle and at https://check.torproject.org/ it confirms that tor is working, and the page shows the tor ip address. I notice this seems to be constant.

Is it possible to get a new ip for every page request?

PS: I seem to have a new IP after 5 minutes now! Although, I am not sure how often does this happen.

Solution

On https://www.torproject.org/about/overview a period of about 10 minutes is mentioned:

For efficiency, the Tor software uses the same circuit for connections that happen within the same ten minutes or so. Later requests are given a new circuit, to keep people from linking your earlier actions to the new ones.

Using another circuit for every connection or even page request (HTTP allows reusing connections) would be really slow and you would have used all available exit nodes after some pages. So this is probably not a good idea. Why would you like to do that?

While I doubt there is an easy way to switch circuits for every request it might be possible to lower the time a circuit is being used. Settings like NewCircuitPeriod are probably useful in this context but since I never had the need to change the behavior, I don't know what else is needed.

Comments

[James]

If you are using vidalia, you can use the 'new identity' button

[curiousguy]

Why would anyone possibly want such a thing?

[Ciro Santilli Путлер Капут 六四事]

stackoverflow.com/questions/1969958/…

[Gurken Papst]

In fact any deviation from normal Tor behavior could make you less anonymous. Without special setup (e.g. disabled cookies) sites can track you even if every request comes from another IP address. So if you regularly visit a site they might be able to recognize you by you unusual access pattern even if you have deleted the cookies in meantime.

[giorgio79]

Appreciated Gurken will keep this in mind. Meanwhile another gem for Windows :) w-shadow.com/blog/2010/12/01/tor-auto-switcher