How to Use Tor

Note: This post is a beginner’s guide to the use of the Tor browser. It is not intended as a complete guide to the use of Tor. To learn more about potential risks, please read Tor is Good But It’s Not Magic.

You may have seen the phrase “Use Tor” thrown around social media for the past year, attached to the phrase “Use Signal.” Or maybe you’ve seen Experian’s offer to scan “the dark web” to see if your personal information is being sold by criminals. Yes, these two phrases are related, even though what they really do has been exaggerated.

So, what are they?

What is Tor?

Tor is actually an acronym; it stands for “The Onion Router.” The various layers of security between the user and the resource they are accessing is like the layers of an onion. That’s why Tor has an onion for its logo.

The Tor network is a group of web servers run by volunteers. This network makes use of virtual tunnels instead of directly connecting to websites; this helps hide someone’s location. Every time you use the network, there are at least three stops before you get to your destination. Each stop is what’s known as a relay, or a node. There are three kinds of nodes:

• Middle – your first stop; bounces traffic around the network
• Bridge – similar to a middle node, but not publicly listed to avoid censorship in countries with Internet restrictions
• Exit – the final stop before you reach the website you want to see

With Tor, you can access the so-called dark web, which is nothing more than “onion services” or “hidden services.” Onion services are Internet sites that can’t be accessed through regular web browsers and public Internet connections. These services have gained an unsavory reputation as a black market for contraband, but they can also be used to report news and share information confidentially. Famous examples include The Guardian’s SecureDrop service and ProPublica’s hidden service.

Where did Tor come from?

Tor started out as a project by scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in 1995; further development was done by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

In October 2003, the Tor Network was launched. The code was made free to the public with a license from MIT. The number of nodes began growing every year. As of January 2018, it was estimated that there are at least 6000 nodes worldwide.

How can I use Tor?

The Tor Project is actually a collection of projects. Some of them are for network administration and coding. But this post will concentrate on the product most people are interested in: the Tor browser. Just about any mobile device or computer can use the Tor network, but they don’t access it the same way. It all depends on what kind of device you’re using.

Windows and macOS

Windows and macOS each have their own version of the Tor Browser. If you’ve ever used Firefox, it will look very familiar; this browser is based on Firefox’s source code. You can find both versions at the Tor Project website for free.

The more secure you want your Internet usage to be, the more conveniences you will have to give up. In the upper left and right corners are the menu buttons for NoScript, a browser extension that can block Javascript from running. Javascript can reveal all sorts of information about you to the website’s owners, like your physical location, the movements of your mouse, and anything you’ve typed into a form – even if you deleted it.

Android

To use Tor on Android, you will need the Tor browser and an app called Orbot. This is a proxy service app that you can download from the Google Play store. After you turn Orbot on, then you can run the Tor browser. (The older Android apps Orfox and Orweb are now obsolete – please delete them!)

The nice part about Orbot is it’s for more than web browsing. Any Android app that supports the use of proxy servers can be routed through Orbot. Even Facebook, which has its own onion service.

Google and Tor don’t always work well together. Google sometimes mistakes traffic from nodes for bot activity and attacks. When first using Google over Tor, you will have to enter info into a CAPTCHA. Unfortunately, this may not work on Orfox. Fortunately, there are other search engines installed on Orfox. I recommend DuckDuckGo.

iOS

There are a lot of browsers in the App Store, but only one of them is recommended by the Tor Project: The Onion Browser. It is still the most popular Tor browser for iOS.

The Onion Browser used to be sold for $0.99 per download, but at the end of 2016, the creator made it free to ensure that it could reach as many people as possible. It’s been upgraded a lot since I first published this post. You can change the security level easily, and you can open multiple tabs now.

Does this really work?

Tor, like any proxy service, is good at hiding your actual location. As long as you have it properly configured…

Tor isn’t a 100% foolproof solution, nor is it a invisibility cloak. But if used correctly, it can make your Internet life much safer.

To take full advantage of all the anonymity that Tor can provide, it’s best to avoid Windows. If you’re on a laptop or desktop, you can use another operating system that sends all your activity through Tor, specifically a Linux distribution called Tails. Next time, I’ll tell you what it’s like to use Tails for a week.