 When it comes to browsers, there are a ton of options out there. For those of you who dedicate yourself to free and open store software, your choice of browser is probably Firefox. For many others, it's Chrome or a variation of Chrome like I use Vivaldi. There are a ton of browsers out there. Now, one of the browsers that you've probably heard a lot about but maybe never actually use is Tor. Now, I know there are a lot of you out there who have used Tor, but many of you haven't and you're probably wondering what it is, what the big deal is, and if you should use it. So Tor is, or as it's called the onion router, is a browser amongst other things that has an interesting reputation. Depending on who you ask, it's either the most secure browser on the planet or it's a gateway to the dark web, whatever that is. Now, today what I'm going to do is give you a very brief explanation of what Tor is and why you should or should not use it. So that's what we're going to do today. But before we jump in, if you leave a thumbs up on this video, I'd really appreciate it. It really helped the channel. So first, let's just go ahead and talk about what Tor is. On a base level, Tor is nothing but a fork of Firefox. That's literally all it is under the hood. It has some fancy stuff, which we're obviously going to talk about, but mostly it's a fork of Firefox. That's all it is. If you were to open up them side by side, you'd have a hard time telling which is Firefox, which is Tor. It'd actually be pretty easy because Tor does, upon first launch, ask you if you want to connect to the onion network. So the onion network is what sets Tor apart from both Firefox and every other browser out there. First, we must discuss the name. So as is usual, when it comes to free and open source software, naming isn't really their strong suit, right? We all know the legends or the reputation of open source developers not being able to name things in clever ways. Really, they have done a fairly good job here with the name, but if you didn't know anything about it, you'd wonder what Tor has to do with onions. And we'll talk more about that as we go along, but the name is kind of weird. Just let's put it that way. So to best explain the so-called onion network, I must first explain how the internet works in basic terms. Now, obviously, what's about to come next is very, very non-technical because it's just easier to do it and very simple. When you visit a website on the internet, data is exchanged between your computer and some server somewhere else in the world. It is obviously more complicated than that. Again, like I said, but the idea is fairly simple. In traditional internet traveling, it is obnoxiously easy to track your every movement via any number of means. Your public IP address is known by every site that you visit and by your browser itself, adding cookies and trackers and all sorts of other things. Most websites and companies on the internet know exactly what you do online, where you're looking, what you're buying, what you're searching for, and so on. Google is obviously the largest evil doer in this regard, but they are by no means the only one. Tor aims to prevent this by obfuscating your data, passing it not directly to some company server, but instead between different nodes or proxies on the onion network. It'll pass through these nodes with several layers of encryption so that your data is completely protected both from the node and from any trackers. Tor passes your data between several nodes before it will eventually finally send your data to the final destination it was meant for so that the server can read the data and respond appropriately. Now for the biggest question I had when I learned about this was what happens to traffic going in the opposite direction? At first it made no real sense to me because I'm kind of an idiot. After all, why would the destination servers presumably run by a large multinational corporation use the Tor network to send data back out? Well, it's actually just a matter of understanding how the internet works and that data is sent back through the same route in which it came just like traditional internet traffic is. Only this time instead of sending it directly to your computer it's just sending it back to the nodes that passed your data to it in the first place. And just like on the forward route there towards the server when it's coming back to you it's also encrypted just like it was there. It's encrypted three times. We'll talk more about encryption here in just a second actually. I don't proclaim to know very much about encryption and it's got a lot to do with math and such and I was never very good at math. There's a reason why I was a history major back at university but it's important to know that Tor uses advanced encryption to protect your data not only from the initial proxy one of those nodes I was talking about earlier but from every proxy that your data touches which is usually the number three. It is only when your data leaves that last relay or that last node and finally heads towards this final destination where all the encryption other than traditional SSL is stripped away. The technical details are mostly beyond me. I will link to a video below by mental outlaw who does a much better job of explaining how this encryption works and everything else you need to know about Tor's encryption and he does a much better job of explaining that than I ever could. But as I understand it, Tor uses the traditional SSL encryption that every browser uses out there but then adds two more layers on top of that encryption to make sure your data is extra secure. Each proxy or node that your data visits of which there are three will peel off one layer of this encryption again layers of an onion which explains the name on the return trip IE from the company's server back to your computer each proxy will add one layer of encryption is basically the same process except in reverse just like we talked about earlier. Now let's talk about what the benefits of Tor actually are you are tracked everywhere online we all know it we all live with it whether we like like it or not it's a given and even if you take all precautions against being tracked you are probably still well known to the boys and girls over at Google the primary purpose of Tor at least for most users is that it makes it harder for the websites you visit to know who you are and where you are those servers don't get access to your IP address or your location before we continue on with the benefits we have to ask a really important question is Tor a VPN because it sounds like Tor and a VPN do kind of the same thing but the answer to the question is Tor VPN is no Tor is not a VPN it's easy to think that these two things are the same or at least that they accomplish the same things but they really don't the Tor network while it does obfuscate your IP address like a VPN it also adds in all that extra encryption that we talked about earlier. VPNs for the most part are not privacy focused their purpose isn't to provide you with privacy even if they market themselves as such the encryption that they offer is between your computer and their servers and then when the data is transferred elsewhere it is no longer encrypted outside of SSL and on top of that it is astonishingly hard to know what VPN companies actually store and you have to realize that you really can't trust them to actually keep your data private. We've heard innumerable number of stories out there where cops have rated VPN companies or governments have made laws against certain things or told them that they've had to store certain things and also most of these things aren't free and open source you can't go in and actually see exactly what their software is doing now they do these external audits or whatever and you have to be able to trust those things and you know some of them are more trustworthy probably than others but you get the point you really can't trust them because you don't have any knowledge of how any of those that stuff actually is working behind the scenes. What a VPN does is very simple it changes your IP address and your location to make it appear as if your internet traffic is coming from somewhere else that's all it does. The tor network as we've discussed is more a convoluted journey high end encryption ensuring that no one nowhere is able to track your data package through the interwebs. So the next question that a lot of people have is what about the dark web because tor has a reputation of being the thing that accesses the dark web and the dark web obviously by name alone has quite a reputation. Tor is notorious and notorious for its privacy benefits but it also is well known for is one of the primary means for people to use access what we call the dark web like I said now because I enjoy monetized status I'm not going to go into much detail here but suffice it to say the way that tor network is structured it allows users to host private websites that aren't available to traditional non-onion connected browsers. These websites are as you might expect wide ranging in their purpose and we'll just leave it at that if you want to know more about the dark web just go google it just be careful you never know where your searches will lead or who's watching maybe you should use tor for it if you're worried about what might get added to your search history. So speaking of search history does tor make you anonymous on the internet no of course it doesn't no security protocol is perfect and tor is no exception there are ways for your data to be compromised even if it is much harder while you use tor it is also still reliant on you not giving yourself away by providing identifiable information in the data you send across the tor network if you are for example signed into your main google account it's really doesn't matter if you're encrypting your data via several tor proxies google will still know who you are because you're signed in with your google account true anonymity is impossible without leaving the internet so just know that tor doesn't change that simple fact so going into the next question then is should you use tor and this will kind of get back into some of the benefits we talked about earlier the answer to this question is more personal and as it's traditional for my channel at least I'm going to be very very vague here tor is not for everyone one of the downsides that I didn't really talk about is that because of the way dead data is traffic between different proxies your browsing experience is going to be much slower than it would be in a traditional browser not horrendous in most cases but it likely will be noticeable it'll be noticeably slower than it would be in a traditional browser but if you have a reason for needing the privacy benefits that tor offers then it is a fantastic tool and you don't need to have nefarious reasons behind your need for tor privacy isn't something just villains need everyone has an interest in privacy it's just a matter of how much interest you actually have in it personally I don't use tor I just don't I don't I've kind of given up on privacy to be honest I can't divorce myself from google from reasons I've talked about in the past mainly my job uses google docs and therefore I have to have a google account also I run a youtube channel which is you know owned by google therefore have to have google account they basically know everything that I do anyways now I do use certain tools that will kind of mitigate the tracking on since that goes on but it's still something that I've kind of considered a lost cause and I don't think that tor would actually change that getting away from google and all that stuff like I said has just been more trouble than it's worth and almost has become impossible without actually changing my profession also I'm a sucker for Vivaldi so I enjoy that browser just a little bit too much to switch to anything else so tor is very interesting technology I've also only really just scraped the surface of it all here I've linked in the video description below several videos I use to do my research for this video I know Matt doing research is the world ending maybe it is also Matt scripted this video in case you didn't notice that I'm actually reading this off and not doing a very good job of it but I'm going to get better I or maybe I won't I don't know I highly recommend if you are interested in learning more about tor doing your own research after you finish watching this video from a browser perspective tor is a specialized tool that is really needed when you are truly interested in protecting your privacy as much as possible but it's not a tool that you can just use and assume is going to protect your privacy it's just one tool but like all privacy tools it can only go so far and that means that it really does come down to an effort on your end the more you do to protect yourself and your privacy the harder it will be for companies and bad actors to gain access to your data never will it be impossible for them to do so like as we discussed but tor and some effort on your part can at least make you feel a little safer on the internet add in some extra tools like a VPN because you can never have too much obfuscation or other tools based on tor which are do exist as well you can actually make yourself even more private you can also ensure that you're using throw away email addresses and ensuring that you're not signed into accounts where you are identifiable through those accounts there are many different things that you can do to ensure your privacy tor again is just one tool that you can use it needs to be used in conjunction with other things if you want truly protect your privacy as much as you can so that's it for this one if you have questions about tor you can leave those in the comment section below you can follow me on mastodon or odyssey or peer tube those links will be in the video description below you can also support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast or you can head over to the shop at shop at the linuxcast.org where you'll find loads of awesome merch thanks everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube you guys are all absolutely amazing without you the challenges to not be anywhere near where it is right now so thank you so very very much for your support it's really appreciated thanks everybody for watching i hope you have a wonderful wonderful wonderful week or weekend and just hope you have an amazing day thanks for watching again i'll see you next time