Vidalia is a graphical shell for the Tor system. But if you want to use the SOCKS as well - the exchange of instant messages Jabber, IRC and others – then in the Tor-network, you also need to specify your application - the local port 9050.
Tor is very easy to install, configure, and more confidential than other browsers. If you need only the anonymous visiting of web pages, then it is enough to install a browser just once. Then it all depends on why you are going to use Tor-network.
