tor

Tor, you must have heard this name a number of times, but do you exactly know what is it?

Do you want to be anonymous over the internet?

In this article you will get all you need to know about the tor browser, what is tor, are you really anonymous using tor, how to install tor.

What is tor

Tor stands for the onion router, it is a web browser which works on the masking mechanism, it was developed the tor project inc., which is a Massachusetts based non-profit organization.

Tor browser is used by people who want to remain anonymous over the internet, such as black hat hackers, white hat hackers, and even people who do illegal things over the internet.

Dark web and deep web can also be surfed with tor browser.

This browser works on masking mechanism, meaning your IP address is masked, making it very difficult to trace

Your IP(internet protocol) address is your identity over the internet, it is an address which consists of 4 sets of 3 numbers separated by dots (ipv4 or internet protocol version 4), for example- abc.def.ghi.jkl.

By knowing your IP address, one can know a lot of information about you such as, what is your location, who is your internet service provider, etc.

What tor does is that it makes a lot of tips for you, just like various layers of an onion, so your real IP becomes very difficult to be traced, 2016 tor browser used 9 different IPs to mask your IP address.

The different IP addresses may be from different countries, like one may be from Germany, other may be from Indonesia and other IP addresses may be from other different countries, to hide your original IP address, and keep you anonymous.

Are you completely anonymous by using tor?

The answer to this question is NO, nothing in this world is perfect and tor browser is no exception.

Although this flaw can be escaped only if you follow a simple tip: don’t change the window size while you use tor.

Whenever you download tor browser, a warning flash on the top of your browser which warns you to not change your browser window size, you have to browse only in a small-sized window, you should not browse in a full-size window if you really want to remain anonymous.

There is a pre-defined window size of every browser, for example when you download Mozilla Firefox browser, it automatically opens up in a full screen-sized window, but that’s not the case with tor, if you do so you will appear different than other people who use tor browser, hence you become more vulnerable to not be anonymous.

When you resize your window size, there are some javascript codes that directly interact with your device, called fingerprints in technical language.

Your device is conned to normal internet, only if you surf using tor browser, you can be anonymous, hence if any such javascript gets executed, your real IP address can be traced very easily.

Is tor safe?

Tor browser is safe as long as you you use it safely

Tor browser is just like any other normal browser, except the fact that you will be able to browse those dimensions of the internet which are not possible to be surfed with a normal web browser

While using this browser you must take certain precautions to avoid being hacked or losing your anonymity.

If you bear caution and don't browse weird sites you are completely safe.

Is tor illegal?

NO, in most of the countries tor browser is completely legal to use as long as you don’t browse illegal content with it.

Illegal content is illegal no matter what browser you use to surf such a typer of content, tor browser on the other hand is simply a web browser to maintain your anonymity over the internet if used properly.

However, it must be noted that it is very difficult and complex to block the tor browser in a country, as it requires to identify and block destination traffic nodes.

There are countries that block VPN such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran, and China, but the only country which successfully blocked tor is china.

Google and the tor-browser

Whenever you search anything on google using tor, you have to go through captcha verification, which is not the situation when using any other browser.

So why this discrimination with tor?

This is done to avoid DoS attacks (denial of service attack), in this attack a machine or a network resource is made unavailable, temporarily or indefinitely.

This can be done by shifting the traffic of a lot of computers to a particular website, which is outside the traffic handling capacity of the targetted website.


For example- if a website can handle 50 users per second, but it receives traffic of 100 users per second, the website won’t be able to handle this traffic and will go down.

Hackers can hijack your computer after which they can take action from your computer without your knowledge, and one such action is driving traffic to a target website, this is done with the help of botnets.

A large number of such attacks can be very unwanted for google as it may lead to google going down.

Google tries to stop these attacks by the use of captcha verification, to ensure that you are a human and not a robot( who is trying to attack a website).

5 Precautions while using tor browser(for near-perfect anonymity)

Downloading the tor browser does not mean that you will be completely anonymous over the internet.

Your anonymity depends upon the fact that how you surf the internet, what are your browsing habits, and do you take some precautionary steps when you surf the internet.

Tor browser is simply a web browser that helps you to hide your IP address but it can be traced if you don’t your browser carefully.

Here are a few tips which you must follow if you want to make sure that you are really anonymous when you surf the web-

1 Don’t change your window size

The default window size of the tor browser is smaller than the full scream window size, you have to make sure that you don’t change this window size by doing so you appear different from the crowd and hence you will be easier to be traced.

Disable cookies and other data permissions

There are a number of websites that you might have come across saying, “we use cookies”, we generally click on the allow button and forget about it, but when using tor the cost of allowing cookies can be your anonymity.

Cookies can collect your browsing data and know what you surfed

It is a good practice to clear cookies after some time of surfing.

2 Disable javascript

There a few javascript which can directly interact with your device( which connected to the normal internet where your IP is not hidden) and hence trace your IP address.

3 Don’t do google searches

As you might be aware that Google collects a lot of data to improve your experience, but this is certainly not desirable.

Moreover using google can be very annoying because you will see a lot of captcha verifications for every query that you search

Instead of google, you can use another search engine called DuckDuckGo which unlike google doesn’t collect your data and you remain hidden.

4 Avoid using personal information-

Using personal information such as your name, email, bank account details can be very dangerous, as hackers are waiting out there for these very details of yours.

Never use your credit card details for buying the stuff you see as even after making transactions some of your payment details may be recorded

 here is a currency called cryptocurrency, which doesn’t leave any traces after transitions

5 Don’t open dot onion domain sites

Dot onion (.onion) domains are used for sites providing anonymous services, such websites might make you very curious, but remember one wrong click on the dark web can even land you into jail.

key points

How to use tor

Tor Browser can be installed on Windows operating system, mac os, Linux and android

You must keep in mind that you install the browser only from the official website

Official website 

The following video gives step by step procedure of how to install and use tor-browser

Tor browser on android

Tor Browser can be perfectly used on your android device, by installing the play store app, from f-droid or by installing APK from the official tor website.

For using tor on your android device you will need two applications, downloaded from the play store

1- the tor-browser
2- the Orbot

The following video gives details and step by step procedure of how to use tor browser on android.

Conclusion-

to conclude let's summarize some of the most important points

• Tor browser stands for the onion router which is a web browser that helps in hiding your IP address which is your identity over the internet.
• Tor browser is simply a tool for hiding your IP address but it completely depends on you how you use it to remain anonymous
• When using tor one must keep in mind some precautions, such as not increasing the window size, disabling javascript, not allowing and clearing cookies, and not opening dot onion (.onion) domain websites.
• Tor Browser can be installed and use on Windows operating system, mac os, Linux, and android (one must keep in mind to install it from the official website only).

comment and tell us did you got to learn anything new today?