Anyone here use the Tor Browser?

Deathmage

Does anyone here use the Tor broswer, thinking of using it but not sure if it's really helps to stay anonymous.

Anyone?

Jon_Cisco

It probably depends on who you are hiding from. I have heard rumor that the NSA hosts some of the endpoints so they can better monitor TOR traffic. True or False? Who cares the NSA can read my posts all they want.

I would expect it helps block advertisers. They track IP addresses for everything and I doubt they are wasting to many resources on finding the few people that really try hide their tracks. It's all a numbers game to them.

I say try it for fun but I doubt it's really required for most people.

kohr-ah

I used to but I stopped mostly because it was slow slow slow.

So instead bought a years VPN connection with multi-endpoint options for $40

ramrunner800

You're probably good with TOR, unless you're hiding from the most advanced of adversaries. If that's who you're hiding from, you're probably already pwnd.

wes allen

kohr-ah wrote: »

I used to but I stopped mostly because it was slow slow slow.

So instead bought a years VPN connection with multi-endpoint options for $40

This.

Check out this list for VPN providers. Also, unless you are very, very careful, it is possible to leak information from the browser bundles. Using a full distro, rather then the browser is probably more secure.

Which VPN Services Take Your Anonymity Seriously? 2014 Edition | TorrentFreak

And, from a network monitoring point of view - TOR use really stands out on any network with even a little bit of NSM. As Matthew Green put it: "I would liken Tor to putting on Sauron's ring. The wearer is invisible to ordinary beings, like Men, but highly visible to the Nazgul." So, do a quick bit of threat modeling to decide why you think you need / want to use TOR, then a bit of research for what options for opsec there are out there. There was a guy at Harvard that used TOR for bomb threats and was caught because he was using TOR.

FBI agents tracked Harvard bomb threats despite Tor | The Verge

LeBroke

If at any point I feel the need to use Tor (mostly for, well, torrenting), I'd just rent a cloud server with good bandwidth somewhere and set up a VPN.

kohr-ah

wes allen wrote: »

This.

Check out this list for VPN providers. Also, unless you are very, very careful, it is possible to leak information from the browser bundles. Using a full distro, rather then the browser is probably more secure.

Which VPN Services Take Your Anonymity Seriously? 2014 Edition | TorrentFreak

Use PIA myself. Number one on that list. Never had an issue.

VIDEODROME

Nice. I've been hearing positive reviews of PIA.

SephStorm

Depends what you want to use it for.

J_86

I've used Tor, but I don't on a regular bases. I normally just use the VPN service I pay for (ivpn.net). I connected from public WiFi a lot when traveling and have it setup to connect anything I use a non-password protected network.

techfiend

PIA user too, I've used tor in chrome before and it's very slow, lots of latency in all those hops. Never used tor browser but I'd imagine it's the same sort of experience. It should keep you anonymous but so should a good vpn, to a point. Tor has had some security issues in the past, that's how silk road was shutdown.

--chris--

techfiend wrote: »

PIA user too, I've used tor in chrome before and it's very slow, lots of latency in all those hops. Never used tor browser but I'd imagine it's the same sort of experience. It should keep you anonymous but so should a good vpn, to a point. Tor has had some security issues in the past, that's how silk road was shutdown.

Im not convinced the Silk Road was sunk because of tor....have you read the filings related to this? The FBIs claims don't make sense...I think krebs had a good write up on it.

MrAgent

Didn't the FBI end up getting someone on the inside, and were able to bust them that way?

techfiend

FBI is claiming captcha leakage but that wouldn't have leaked the real site. I just went by initial, often wrong, reports from ars technica I think it was and they stressed tor wasn't as secure as thought.

markulous

kohr-ah wrote: »

Use PIA myself. Number one on that list. Never had an issue.

Same here. PIA doesn't throttle my bandwidth much and seems pretty secure.

jamthat

markulous wrote: »

Same here. PIA doesn't throttle my bandwidth much and seems pretty secure.

For what it's worth, my speedtests (generic speedtest.net type stuff) were faster with PIA when I was on Cox. It's all equal with uverse now. PIA is good stuff!

techfiend

jamthat wrote: »

For what it's worth, my speedtests (generic speedtest.net type stuff) were faster with PIA when I was on Cox. It's all equal with uverse now. PIA is good stuff!

That's surprising pia (in .nl) has better speeds then cox. Where was the speedtest located?

Deathmage

techfiend wrote: »

That's surprising pia (in .nl) has better speeds then cox. Where was the speedtest located?

I have no problems with speed.

and I download torrents all the time, you would think by now they would throttle my speeds...



kind of makes me re-think Tor Browser though....

VIDEODROME

Giving Tor a try on my Linux Netbook. I was wondering if this would be a good cheap alternative for people that just want to avoid Man In The Middle Attacks when using mobile devices on public Wifi.

Also, do you have to be careful which search engine you use to avoid being de-anonymized? I noticed Google distrusts Tor network behavior and has asked me for Captchas.

fuz1on

VIDEODROME wrote: »

I noticed Google distrusts Tor network behavior and has asked me for Captchas.

I VPN exclusively so I've noticed this behavior too - it's really annoying!