There are several different browsers you can use to access Tor. Even ones like Waterfox, Brave and Opera and so many more. However, I am going to mention ones that intentionally help you blend in because they are more commonly and widely used----and our countermeasure in the darknet is to blend in so that we all look alike.
It doesn’t get any more basic than this. You burn it onto a flash drive and you don't have to worry about the computer having viruses because Tails runs independently from the other operating system and never uses the hard disk. It’s an Amnesiac operating system, meaning it forgets everything you’ve done while you were using it, but you can enable “Persistence” and save to it as well.
It’s a more on-the-go Operating System as it’s portable. It also gets updated nearly weekly so it has a good team of developers supporting it.
In a nutshell, Tails boots off USB and works on any machine (even older machines), leaves no trace of activity (in logs, page files, bash history, browsing history) and can be taken on the go and used on different machines and there is no installation. Merely, plug and play.
Then, there is Whonix. Whonix is probably as easy to use as Tails, maybe even easier because it already has persistence. It’s a lot more secure. It does require you to have (1) a pre-existing computer and (2) to download Oracle’s VirtualBox and (3) import Whonix.
That’s pretty much it. Whonix provides a bigger playing field. You can download easily to it and it concentrates on keeping you, as the user, safe, even when running arbitrary, leaky non-Tor-safe applications.
Unlike Tails, Whonix runs in a virtual machine (actually, two virtual machines). One Virtual Machine runs the actual Workstation and browser (the “Workstation”) where you do all your work and the other Virtual Machine is responsible for routing your activities through Tor and acts as a gateway to the Internet (the “Gateway”).
The fact that the Workstation is isolated from the internet and can only access the internet through the Gateway means that it is nearly impossible for your IP to leak (because the Workstation doesn't even know what your IP is). The other big difference between Whonix and Tails is that Whonix is not meant to be "amnesic," so the system will retain all your history unless you take steps to securely wipe it.
Isolation of Workstation from network is a huge advantage for keeping your IP address private--even if your browser (or any other application in the Workstation) is fully compromised, it's impossible for it to reveal your IP because it doesn't know your IP.
On the downside, despite it being simple to use, it needs modern hardware that supports visualization technologies, and a decent amount of RAM, etc.
Then there is the simplest form off all—the Tor Browser Bundle which can be downloaded and ran on nearly any operating system. It is imperative that you check the digest/checksum/hash of the file once it has been downloaded for data integrity.
The TBB is completely standalone and doesn't require anything other than an Internet connection and the immediate disabling of JavaScript.
Another simple, less-spoken of tool is the operating system known as ParrotOS Security Edition, called AnonSurf. This script was made to provide users with system-wide anonymization. In simpler words, anything you do while you have AnonSurf started on your system would be nearly untraceable. AnonSurf not only routes all your traffic through Tor, but it also lets you start i2p services and clear any traces left on the user disk. Anonsurf also kills away all dangerous applications by virtue of the Pandora bomb, so you do not need to worry about having a Tor browser and other scripts running to hide your system. The best part is that all this is contained in a simple start/stop function. You can also run ParrotOS from a USB drive.
Qubes OS — I won’t even both writing about Qubes OS. There is another article on it. But it’s nowhere comparable to the ease of this set of software to get you going and into Onion Routing for all practical matters.
Along with Qubes OS, there is another piece of software you won't use, despite its simplicity, namely torsocks. Torsocks is a torifying wrapper that is primarily used to redirect all the network traffic of individual SOCKS-friendly applications through the Tor network. It can enhance your use of Tor by letting you run command line utilities and scripts anonymously.
For example: one can run other programs with torsocks wrapped around them:
~$ torsocks gajim
Another example, you can use ssh to a remote server; some.ssh.com by doing:
~$ torsocks ssh -p 22
username@pkgsxmtmdrlxp7l3gfqysi3ceaochd4vnv7eax2fuyridmcz7ucvluad.onion
