Is this what people think about Tor browser?

image transcription:
a YouTube screenshot of a community post, which is a meme regarding incognito mode. it has two panels with an animated figure(person) and chrome logo (chrome) with limbs. in first panel, chrome is asking “which website would you line to see?”, to which the person replies " I don’t want you to know. " in second panel, chrome has become a ventriloquist, holding a masked muppet with sunglasses and a fedora(symbol for incognito on chrome). it is asking the person “what about telling Mr. incognito?”, to which the person joyfully replies “okay.”

the screenshot has a main comment with several replies. the main comment(by Paula_Amato) reads, “And then there’s Tor browser e CD Catching my brother Scrolling through Tor was the second worst secret I know about him… The first is the website he was using.”

replies to the comment:

[30 Pranay Pawar • 1 day ago] May God bless and have mercy on the bro’s life. I would knock myself out for eternity if anybody i know found that out too.
[FArid ch. • 1 day ago] what onion website your brother access… out of curiosity
[Griffin McKenzie • 1 day ago (edited)] Tor is literally just a browser like any other but better.

KrummsHairyBalls,

Biggest issue with Tor is the 1Mbps speeds it gives me on my 1.5Gbps connection.

Also, I decided to go to an onion link for the first time last month, typed in “best onion websites” on Google, clicked the first Reddit link, found the top comment and typed in it first address.

Child porn.

I know onion addresses can be anything, but God damn. Comment is still up on Reddit, also. I believe it was posted a couple years ago.

So I definitely can understand where that idea of Tor comes from lol

Cyanogenmon,
@Cyanogenmon@lemmy.world avatar

I remember when I first used Tor. I was like 14.

Found the silk road when it was still up. Poked around for a bit. Cool.

Next onion site I found was also cp. That image is burned into my skull forever. Uninstalled Tor and never went back. Hard pass.

KrummsHairyBalls,

Thankfully the front page was not super graphic for me. Still cp, but it was a portal for logging into your account.

Scary part was the photos that were shown, the girls looked very abused. Obviously cp is abuse, but I mean they looked VERY abused and used. Clearly some trafficking shit.

I also immediately uninstalled Tor. I understand it has other uses, but I don’t really need Tor anyway. I was just goofing around and found out.

ColdWater,
@ColdWater@lemmy.ca avatar

I don’t use tor but I would use it for piracy if I lived in a strict country

Gestrid,

Honestly, I’d probably use Tor more if I knew which sites on the dark web were “safe”.

Basically, I know how to use Tor, but I have no idea where to begin with it.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

Isn’t there a directory for safe onion links anywhere?

Gestrid,

If there is, I’d like to know.

Amends1782,

TOR is just a browser, using Firefox as the base, and heavily modified and the special ability to access, but not required, what’s colloquially known as the dark web. What you choose to visit and do is on your, not TOR, or Firefox, or anyone else involved.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

I learnt over a decade ago never to trust anyone who thinks of Tor (or ) as a bad thing, terrorist tool or whatever. Worked pretty well against my blabbermouth family and friends.

InputZero,

I get what you’re saying, but for my daily protest comment against Reddit; there is no such thing as a terrorist tool. Tools aren’t good or bad, but they can be used for good or bad. This has been another comment which added nothing to the conversation. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Knusper,

I don’t think ‘people’ think about Tor. Most would not know what that is…

blanketswithsmallpox,

… Tor is just a modified Firefox though lmfao.

pchem, (edited )

It’s based on Firefox, but those modifications do have a rather large impact in terms of privacy.

STUPIDVIPGUY,

personally I don’t care if google knows about my femboy hentai I just don’t want it popping up in my search whenever i type “f”

Lunachocken,

Press f to pay respects…wait what’s that…

shalafi,

Back in 2002 my manager was hosting his own little site on his home webserver. Shared it with all of us, and the company’s managers who were our sole source of income.

“So Jay, the Google search widget is pretty cool, but when I stary to type “a”, “Angelina Jolie porn” comes in the results. Who all you share this with?”

“Oh shit! Are you fucking serious?!”

Gonzako,

What about: fornicating men in a feminine fashion

Th3D3k0y,

I’ll suggest the same thing I always suggest:

Pick a favorite browser to use for every day

Pick least favorite browser for porn Set up least favorite browser to remove cache, cookies, history, everything on close

That way you can safely F without search suggestions

flashgnash,

Or you could just use private mode, profiles, sandboxed browser etc

30p87,

At least e621 isn’t an obvious name

Omega_Haxors,

The stereotype of pedophiles using the dark web is absolutely true. I hosted an exit node and not even a day later got a call from my ISP. I told them I was hosting an exit node and they instantly understood the situation, went to close the node and have never hosted another one since.

iloverocks,

I am also thinking about hosting my own but that outch

Amends1782,

Do it with a VPS provider not your own network that is plain silly

iloverocks,

I wouldnt do it so ether

beefcat, (edited )
@beefcat@beehaw.org avatar

I could never be comfortable with myself knowing I was facilitating the transmission of CSAM.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

It is not worth the risk. Do not do it. “Freedom” assholes do not care about abusing said freedom or being responsible with it, to not waste it on watching fucking child porn.

Omega_Haxors,

Tell me about it. A disturbing amount of people only care about free speech for that one sole reason, and it shows.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

I have tried to call out anonymity abusers and “freezepeach” irresponsible assholes in privacy community for a while, being in the community for years now as a known privacy guide writer. I think the only way this selfish ignoramus community will ever listen is when they suffer due to these insufferable sewage rats that love to use freedom to say N word, f*g or watch child porn. I am getting tired of blaring the horns and hammering the gong.

papalonian,

I don’t know anything about Tor and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.

RedditRefugee69,

It seems like Tor is just super-incognito mode. Like the for real one

SubArcticTundra,

Tor is incognito mode except that this time it isn’t fake

RedditRefugee69,

Thank you. Couldn’t have said it better

Hypnoctopus,
@Hypnoctopus@lemmy.ml avatar

Incognito mode is just to keep your family from seeing what you do not from keeping the gubberment

rockSlayer,

It’s a heavily modified firefox browser designed to work with something called “the onion network”. It’s called this because there are several nodes on the network designed to obfuscate your Internet traffic by wrapping a layer on your Internet traffic, creating an “onion”. All of these layers mean that each node only knows what the previous and next nodes are. The most vulnerable nodes are the starting and exit nodes, because they can identify you and potentially trace back your IP. You also can’t choose your starting or exit nodes. It’s well known that the US federal government controls some of these exit nodes.

papalonian,

I still know incredibly little about the Tor browser and how it works, but I appreciate your response!

I guess I don’t understand what the difference is between using the Tor browser and just using a VPN. I’ve also got very little idea what a “node” is so that’s probably my issue haha.

Imacat,

When you use a vpn, any traffic that would go between you and a website goes through the vpn first. Makes it hard for sites to know who you are and makes it hard for your isp to know what sites you visit.

When you use tor, any traffic that would go between you and a website is bounced around between a few different computers first. Similar to a vpn but is near impossible to track unless you’re a big gov agency with lots of resources.

papalonian,

That brought things down to understandable levels for me. Thanks! Think I’ve got a grasp on it and kind of considering getting it myself.

nightwatch_admin,

There’s one thing missing from your reply: the vpn provider knows who you are and what you are doing, so it’s not better than an isp - just a trust tradeoff.

force,

Using a VPN makes your traffic travel through the VPN server to get encrypted before reaching the destination.

Using Tor basically does this 3 times, but it’s decentralized so it goes through multiple different random relays before reaching the destination. And it changes which relays you’re using every 10 minutes.

When using a VPN you’re basically relying on your VPN service giving it their all when it comes to protecting your privacy, and also on them not bending over to the government if it wants to monitor you. Which you won’t get with a lot of VPNs (especially not free VPNs).

Since Tor is decentralized and changes your connections frequently, it’s virtually impossible to monitor someone using Tor. The chance that all 3 relays your traffic travels through are controlled by people coordinating to get you are slim in the first place, without even considering the relays changing.

You can also use both Tor and a VPN at once, but to do so properly is a lot more convoluted than just turning on your VPN and using Tor at the same time.

Kirca,

This sounds strictly better than a regular browser, is there some obvious downsides that im missing (I know I could google this but you write very clearly and concisely and if it’s not too much trouble, I’d love to hear your views on this)

bjoern_tantau,
@bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

It is usually much slower than a direct connection or a commercial VPN.

Also law enforcement, spy agencies and criminals all run public nodes to get lucky and grab as much data on you as possible. So you should never use TOR for unencrypted websites. But I’d say the same should be assumed when using a commercial VPN.

force,

Really the only reason to use Tor is if you really need a certain type of privacy, or to bypass certain restrictions on websites. It’s definitely not something to use as a daily driver, it can be cumbersome and using it incorrectly puts you at risk.

It doesn’t have a lot of features that normal browsers use – it doesn’t save history, some sites don’t work on Tor because it does a lot of fancy stuff like blocking trackers. You shouldn’t use extensions on Tor either, that can get you deanonymised.

It also doesn’t guarantee a lot of protection against malicious actors on the web. You still have to be as cautious about what websites you use as you would on any other browser.

You also can’t really do things that demand a lot of bandwith like downloading large files on Tor – speeds are extremely slow due to all of the privacy measures they take, and it causes a LOT of strain on Tor nodes and makes the experience worse for everyone. If you’re pirating/torrenting, just use a VPN.

You shouldn’t do anything on Tor that exposes personal/sensitive information, including logging onto websites with your personal accounts, that defeats almost the entire purpose of using it for the average user (anonymity) and can actually put you at risk.

Especially don’t do anything like online banking or shopping on Tor. It’s not suitable for secure online transactions.

Basically only use it for stuff that DOESN’T require personal/sensitive/identifying info, and stuff that DOESN’T use up a lot of bandwidth.

Honestly for the average person, Tor is completely useless. Most should only use it if they know there’s something they may need to hide from a government/ISP/etc. Otherwise just Firefox with some extensions and changed settings will do.

SartorialSass,

Newbie here. How would you do so properly?

melooone,

Give this a read: gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/…/TorPlusVPN

Flumsy,

TOR and VPN at once is just dumb and probably less secure than just using TOR.

AnarchistArtificer,

Thanks for asking this follow-up question - until I read your comment, I hadn’t realised that this is sort of my confusion about Tor too

Rustmilian,
@Rustmilian@lemmy.world avatar

Just don’t login to anything. Easy.

zepheriths,

Besides Tor was (initially) developed by the NSA. I would be surprised if there wasn’t a government backdown

Hotdogman,

Thought it was the navy that did.

kautau,

You’re correct

In 2004, the Naval Research Laboratory released the code for Tor under a free license

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network)?wprov=sfti1#H…

plague_sapiens,
@plague_sapiens@lemmy.world avatar

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network)Not NSA and no backdoor so far. It’s not needed, control enough hops and you can trace a lot and even deanonymize clients. Tor has it’s weaknesses, maybe implemented just for that. But afaik they’re mostly caused by design.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

It is made and funded by DARPA, and NSA hosts some of the nodes on TOR network.

InfiniWheel,

I’d argue its in their best interest for it to be as secure and widely used as possible. Can’t have other govs peeking (every lock can be lockpicked yadda yadda) and can’t have people instantly know its the US military when someone accesses Tor.

nightwatch_admin,

Exactly. And if you want to catch bad guys, you can build honeypot websites (or take over bad ones, like law enforcement did with several dark markets) and work on deanonimyzing visitors there.

Ultraviolet,

It’s open source, if there was a back door it would have been found years ago.

Tetsuo,

It’s open source, anybody can audit the code. Everybody can keep secret what they found and sell it.

TacoNissan,

It’s very likely that more than a single person would find an issue…

Flumsy,

The NSA uses TOR themselves. Why would they even want it to be insecure?

Tetsuo,

I’m not speaking of this project in particular.

Just saying, just because something is open source doesn’t mean it has no vulnerability or backdoor in it’s code.

There is plenty of example of vulnerabilities that existed for years in major open source projects. And there is definitely people that discover some zero day and straight up sell them and stay quiet.

If you look at some of the businesses in the market of zero day vulns you can see what they offer for good vulns.

Who cares if the NSA uses it. Or if they say they use it. They gain nothing in saying they use a specific product. But that’s a good way to encourage others to use it. I certainly wouldn’t trust the NSA on anything they say publicly.

You can backdoor a product just for you and still release it so other people you might be interested in will give you cool data. In cryptography this is not really an issue to have backdoors that only some people can use.

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