

So much so that just connecting to the Tor network may raise a flag with law enforcement or government agencies. That said, there are many illegitimate uses for Tor and the network has a bad reputation. Utilizing Tor itself isn’t illegal and the network has many legitimate uses, such as providing an anonymous forum for journalists, whistleblowers, law enforcement and military agencies, victims of crime, and anyone else who can benefit from a high level of privacy.

When you use Tor alone, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and any snoopers such as government agencies can detect that you’re using Tor. Tor traffic travels through at least three random nodes (which are actually volunteer computers and may also be called relays) before reaching the destination website. Often called “Tor” for short, the Tor network encrypts your internet traffic, which means that if anyone intercepts it, they won’t be able to decipher its contents. When you connect to the internet via the Tor network, you can browse anonymously and gain access to sites that are not available via the clear web. TIP: I’ve found NordVPN to be the best option for Tor. In this post, I discuss the benefits of using a VPN and Tor together and reveal the different ways you can set them up. This gives you double encryption and solves some of the privacy issues inherent in the standalone tools. Both encrypt your internet traffic, but due to the way they work, they each fall short of providing complete privacy.Ī solution is to combine forces and use a VPN alongside Tor. Please use one of the above methods to obtain more bridge addresses, and try again.Using either the Tor network or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) as a standalone service will have its benefits and drawbacks. If the connection fails, the bridges you received may be down. Select the checkbox UseĪ bridge, and from the option Provide a bridge, enter each bridge address on a separate line. Look for Tor connection settings and click on it. Complete the Captcha and click Submit.įrom Brave, click on Main Menu -> Settings and then on PrivacyĪnd security in the sidebar. Toggle the Use a bridge, option "on", then select Request a bridgeįrom, click Request a New Bridge. Use Moat to fetch bridges from within Brave.įrom Brave, click on Settings in the hamburger menu (≡) and then on "Privacy and security" in the sidebar.Email from a Gmail, or Riseup email address.Getting bridge addressesīecause bridge addresses are not public, you will need to request them yourself. You do not need to obtain bridge addresses in order to use these transports. Other pluggable transports, like meek, use different anti-censorship techniques that do not rely on bridges. Using bridges in combination with pluggable transports helps to conceal the fact that you are using Tor, but may slow down the connection compared to using ordinary Tor relays. Like ordinary Tor relays, bridges are run by volunteers unlike ordinary relays, however, they are not listed publicly, so an adversary cannot identify them easily. Most pluggable transports, such as obfs4, rely on the use of "bridge" relays.
