What is TOR? 2

Many of us use Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE or torch browser to surf the internet, but there’s one browser the general audience don’t know. It is The Onion Router or commonly known as TOR browser. In this post, we will try to make you aware of the TOR browser, what is it? How it works? Should you use it? And what are its advantages and disadvantages.

What is TOR?

A TOR is a special kind of browser, created and maintained by a non-profit organisation that helps you stay anonymous on internet. TOR uses networking protocols that are specifically made to help you stay anonymous. TOR browser helps users surf the internet anonymously using the TOR network, where your machine connects to other machines using TOR, creates a chain like this and then lets you surf the net. The sophisticated relay of TOR browser makes it difficult to trace anything back to you. TOR browser also makes it impossible for online Ads to do any traffic analysis and gather data on your internet. No one can snoop into your e-mails, search history or social media posts, even if you’re in a compromised network.

How TOR browser works?

Every-time you try to surf the net through TOR, it disguises your identity by moving your request from various different available Tor servers and in the process encrypting your traffic so that it is not traced back to you. Tor browser uses TOR relay that creates a chain of machines through which your requests will be sent and received.

• Each time you send a request, the Tor browser rips away the header containing your IP address and other information thus trying to keep you anonymous from the very start.
• The rest of the data is encrypted so that the intruder can’t understand the data even if he manages to eavesdrop.
• This encrypted data is then sent via number of Tor servers and other volunteered machines. So if you need to trace any address back to its origin, you’ll need to decrypt the message and then trace back all the relays it passed through. Certainly not an easy job.
• Each relay only decrypts the information it needs i.e. from which relay the request came from and is addressed to which relay . The relay then rewraps package in new wrapper and sends it on.
• The several layers involved in this method is reminiscent of onion, hence the onion name.
• Its been known since some time that the TLS and SSL protocols we use while surfing and paying online, can be intercepted and traced back to you, because it is not encrypted. Tor provides encryption for these two protocols too.

How to use TOR?

The TOR project has done a fantastic work in turning this complicated job into single click job. To use TOR, all you need to do is download it’s bundle for Windows or Linux whichever is your preferred OS. Once you’re done downloading, install it and open the browser just like any other normal browser. It’ll automatically start its sophisticated yet amazing job and you’ll be anonymous within seconds. You can also use a new identity whenever you wish to. You can see the relay path you’re using. All this is available to the user.

When you open Tor, it’ll start setting up your network:

Tor network setup

If you’re using an outdated or old version of TOR which is not recommended, you’ll get this warning:

Old, out of date TOR browser.

If you’ve downloaded the latest version, and configured proxy (if you have one) then you should see this:

Working updated TOR browser

Who should use TOR?

Well if you’re just another user spending time in YouTube, mails or social networking sites, you don’t need Tor. All it will do is slow it down for you. Its better to secure your network than use Tor browser. However there are people who need to keep their activities private and so can prefer TOR over other browsers. Activists and Hackers are notorious for using Tor browser. People who want to bypass proxy server and view censored sites are also known to use Tor browser.
Since tor encrypts and sends your data through various servers, there is a considerable decrease in your surfing and downloading speed. Hence using tor for day-to-day activities is not advisable.

Things to remember while using TOR

Tor browser does its best to keep you secure and anonymous, but your carelessness can turn it into joke. There are few things you should always remember while using Tor browser.

1. Never log in to any of your personal accounts using Tor.

2. Disable JavaScript globally. Not on a single page but on all pages.

3. Don’t download anything from Tor browser.

4. The canvas image of any website always tries to get your location. Tor will ask you whether you want to allow it or not. Select ‘Do not allow’ every time you see this pop up.

5. And last but not the least: Never ever show your identity or carry out any legal transactions using Tor.

Is Tor safe when it comes to security and anonymity?

One of the Tor’s founders, Roger Dingledine  was asked this question to which he replied:

“That’s a complex question, and it depends who you ask, from my perspective, security is a broad class of properties you might want, including confidentiality (what many people call encryption), authentication (do I know whether the website I’m talking to is really the one I meant to reach?), integrity (am I confident that nobody in the middle is changing the content I’m sending or receiving), reliability (is it always available when I want to reach it, maybe even despite an attacker trying to make it unavailable), etc.
Anonymity itself can be a wide variety of properties — we might think of source anonymity (can an attacker figure out the IP address that this connection came from?), destination anonymity (can an attacker figure out this connection’s destination, e.g. website?), unlinkability (can a website or other attacker figure out that two anonymous connections came from the same person?), etc.
Many people use Tor to get anonymity from an external observer while still wanting to authenticate with their destination, For example they want to reach Gmail, and know that it’s really Gmail, and have Gmail know that it’s really them, but they don’t want a local observer to learn that they’re contacting Gmail, and they don’t want Gmail or somebody watching Gmail to be able to learn what country they’re in today.”