Im trying to connect my Bitcoin core full node through Tor but I have been waiting for 15 minutes and I still have 0 peers.
I clicked on the "Connect throught SOCKS5 proxy (default proxy)" checkbox and also clicked on the "Use separate SOCKS5 proxy to reach peers via Tor hidden services:"
then restarted the client with these boxes checked and a Tor Browser window opened (I think this was needed) but I cannot see any peers. Im doing something wrong?
The proxy settings are the default ones (127.0.0.1:9050)
So, you are trying to use the bundled Tor from Tor Browser rather than a dedicated Tor daemon? This is
not recommended.
IIRC, the default TCP port for Tor Browsers Tors SOCKSPort is
127.0.0.1:9150, which explains why Bitcoin could not connect to port 9050. On Linux, at least, recent versions of Tor Browser may even use a UNIX domain socket rather than a TCP socket. But Im not even sure what it does by default, since I use Tor Browser with an external Tor daemon on a network-isolating gateway. I would need to searchI recommend that you do so, if you really want to use Tor Browsers Tor.
If you want to add another SOCKSPort to Tor Browser, look for Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor/torrc. See the Tor manual page for documentation of SOCKSPort. Be aware that this will probably (?) be wiped out when you upgrade Tor Browser.
It is
strongly recommended that you set up a separate Tor daemon for your Bitcoin. I recommend doing so on a gateway which isolates the internal network; this affirmatively prevents
all leaks of your real IP address, whether malicious or accidental. Many applications leak horribly, doing direct DNS lookups even when they purport to accept SOCKS proxy settings. You can set up a Tor gateway on a cheap computer with two Ethernet ports, or using VMs within the same physical machine. On FreeBSD, the jail subsystem provides a lightweight means to achieve this.
N.b. that if you use a separate Tor daemon with Tor Browser, it requires some muttered incantations to disable Tor Browsers bundled Tor; and you
must do this to avoid Tor-over-Tor, which will harm your anonymity as well as killing performance.