From a fresh download to the login page

Step one, install the browser

1. Download Tor Browser from the Tor Project’s own site. The installers for Windows, macOS and Linux sit on the same page, so pick the one that matches the machine you are reading this on. Do not grab it through a search result that is not the project directly. Typosquatted domains around the Tor Project name have hosted backdoored installers before, and the only reliable check is the address bar.
2. Run the installer and accept the default location. The first launch shows a Connect button. Click it and wait. A fresh install can take ten to thirty seconds before the home screen appears, and that wait is the browser building a path, not a fault.

Step two, set the slider

Open the shield in the toolbar and set the security level to Safer. That turns off scripting by default and disables a handful of font and image features that have been used for fingerprinting. The market storefront is built to work with scripting off, so you do not need to loosen that setting to log in, browse or place an order.

Leave it on Safer for the first visit. If a page you need will not finish loading, drop it to Default once, note what changed, and move back up before you leave. The habit of leaving it on the lowest setting forever is how a fingerprint sneaks in.

Step three, paste the address

Go to the mirror list and copy one of the three addresses in full, scheme included. Switch to the Tor Browser tab, click the address bar, paste, and press return. The first connection to a given onion adds a pause of ten to thirty seconds while the browser finds introduction points. A second address from the same list reaches the same login page, so a slow first load is not a reason to abandon it.

Step four, read the bar before the password

Before you touch the password field, read the address bar once. The first four characters should read mars and the last six should match the list. Those two ends are the parts a fake has to earn, and a clone that got the prefix right but not the tail is the common failure. If the middle does not look like the one on this page, close the tab and start again rather than logging in to find out.

Step five, register and lock it down

1. Sign in if you have an account, or choose Register to make one. Use a long passphrase that is unique to this site. Four or five random words separated by spaces is the friendlier shape, and a sixteen character random string is the dense one.
2. Save the recovery phrase the registration page shows you exactly once. It is the only way back into the account if the browser profile is lost, and the storefront cannot recover it for you out of band.
3. Open the settings from the account menu and turn on two factor authentication before you deposit anything. Any authenticator app reads the QR code the page shows.

When the first launch hangs

The most common stall is a stuck circuit on a fresh install. Closing the Tor Browser and reopening it clears it. The second is a corporate or school network that blocks the ports Tor uses, in which case the phone on a mobile data connection usually works where the laptop does not. The third is a typo that crept in between the copy and the paste, and the only cure is to copy directly from the mirror list into the address bar so the middleman never sees the string.