Tor (originally called The Onion Router because it layers your traffic like an onion) is a free software program that you load onto your computer (like a browser) that hides your IP address every time you send or request data on the Internet. The process is layered with heavy-duty encryption, which means your data is layered with privacy protection.
Protect your identities with Tor
The team behind Tor (The Onion Router) provides free open-source software that helps you browse the internet anonymously. Using Tor helps to protect the identities of your sources — and yourselves — when you’re following leads online. Citizens who live in countries where internet access is heavily restricted use Tor to bypass those restrictions.
Originally the Tor network was developed with the help of the US navy. The network was developed to enable the US Navy and other military organizations to communicate anonymously online. When Tor was first being developed in the 1990s, a major goal was to protect intelligence communications.
These days, Tor mainly focuses its attention on its browser and the development of a few other privacy tools. Regular folks like us can use it when we just want to feel like we’re doing everything we can to make sure our online activities aren’t being spied by anyone.
How to use Tor?
Download official Tor browser
- Tor is free to use. Simply download and install the browser, which is a modified version of Firefox available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Other alternatives:
- Brave browser private window with Tor
Access hidden wikis and more
If you search hidden wikis then you will find many .onion domain sites something like to access DuckDuckGo.com search engine on Tor you need to type URL address https://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/ but make sure this wont work in normal browsers but only in Tor browser.
What is on the hidden wiki? Hidden Wiki is basically a website that contains a collection of deep web URLs (in another word dark websites) that can only be accessed through Tor Browser. That said, it’s basically a link directory for deep web. There are blogs, services and forums, many of them are illegal, so be aware!
Want to volunteer the Tor project?
You can volunteer the Tor project by installing Snowflake extension in your browser.
If you have an uncensored connection, running this extension volunteers your connection to be used as a Snowflake proxy to help users unable to connect to the Tor network. Your IP will not be visible to the sites users visit using your proxy, as this extension will not make you an exit node.
If your access to the Tor network is blocked, this extension will not assist you, and you should use the Tor Browser instead.
Further reading
- Tor (anonymity network), Wikipedia
- The Tor Project, Wikipedia
