{"slug": "tor", "name": "Tor", "category": "networking", "category_name": "Networking and VPN", "description": "Free anonymity network and browser that routes traffic through volunteer-run relays.", "recommenders": 10, "commenters": 20, "warners": 1, "score": 9.823, "rising": 0.71, "first": "2025-12-06", "latest": "2026-10-20", "why": "HN commenters use it for everyday privacy and anonymity, and to reach the open internet under censorship, as in Russia.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 10, "neutral": 8, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Privacy and anonymity", "Censorship bypass"], "caveat": "Site blocking", "short_quote": "I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable.", "icon": true, "domain": "nixos.wiki", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.torproject.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Tor"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters use it for everyday privacy and anonymity", "cites": [{"id": 740548883, "item_id": 46284305, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46284305", "by": "lrvick", "date": "2025-12-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I significantly reduce the chance of this by using VPNs and Tor for most personal traffic depending on use case", "excerpt": "Privacy is like diet, it is not a zero sum game. The less data we give to advertisers and governments the better. The point is to increase the expense of tracking and create as many holes in their databases as possible. > You can be tracked with flock cams, ring cams, or any other thousands of cams out there that are already recording you and logging your car and your details. That grocery store you went to yesterday", "context": "security practitioner advising financial institutions", "use_case": "private network traffic", "switched_from": "", "story": "Former CIA spy: agency's tools can takeover your phone, TV, and even your car"}, {"id": 790751331, "item_id": 49421958, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421958", "by": "DavidD", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "blending into a big crowd (Tor at its default size)\nbeats a bespoke hardened setup that makes you the only one who looks like that.", "excerpt": "I built this after a thread here about Alibaba using an audio-context trick to fingerprint visitors. I knew a fair number of fingerprinting methods but not that one, and I wanted to see all of them in one place, running against my own browser. GlassBox runs ~31 probes (canvas, WebGL/WebGPU, audio, fonts, the WASM feature set, math/engine quirks, WebRTC IP, timezone/locale, the permission and API matrices, an incognit", "context": "", "use_case": "reducing browser fingerprint", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: GlassBox \u2013 what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are"}, {"id": 777511536, "item_id": 48594471, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48594471", "by": "roserugco", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tor (onion) is great to use internet without complexity and with security.", "excerpt": "Any terminal follows Unix Linux terminal commands. You can learn linux on freecodecamp. Fact is that it is actually hard to setup on this phone because we going OS into OS: > Android > Termux android terminal (pkg install package_name) > ubunutu (sudo apt install package) Tor (onion) is great to use internet without complexity and with security. You will need to have basic understanding of: 1. Linux commands 2. Tor (", "context": "", "use_case": "private internet access", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best resources for learning how to build a forum back end?"}]}, {"text": ", and to reach the open internet under censorship, as in Russia.", "cites": [{"id": 777863552, "item_id": 48616472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48616472", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable.", "excerpt": "Don't know, I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable. The only problem I see is how to get initial distribution since the tor site is blocked.", "context": "lives in Russia", "use_case": "bypassing censorship in Russia", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 778052944, "item_id": 48628309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628309", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use bridging.", "excerpt": "I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.", "context": "UK user", "use_case": "circumventing network blocks", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is that many websites block Tor traffic or bombard it with captchas", "cites": [{"id": 800650624, "item_id": 50040664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50040664", "by": "reorder9695", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it, it's not that slow for me", "excerpt": "I use it, it's not that slow for me, the main issue is a lot of websites block traffic from Tor. Funnily enough Reddit allows traffic from Tor but blocks traffic from my VPN.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad"}, {"id": 784641056, "item_id": 49040066, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040066", "by": "qlte", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the volume of captchas and blocks on my regular internet connection that I see on the occasion I use Tor", "excerpt": "> Plus, IP addresses rotate once a day This is entirely specific to the user\u2019s ISP, my \u201cdynamic\u201d IP goes months without changing. And I would be miserable if I were subjected to the volume of captchas and blocks on my regular internet connection that I see on the occasion I use Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 767689650, "item_id": 47980603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47980603", "by": "sanskritical", "date": "2026-05-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use only Tor", "excerpt": "https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.wired.com/story/when-robots-have-their-chatgpt-moment-remember-these-pincers/ Works for me. I use only Tor so it is actually far more accessible. Archive.is uses Google's Recaptcha, which for some reason rejects valid solutions submitted via Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different"}]}, {"text": ", and some users hit a speed penalty.", "cites": [{"id": 797991792, "item_id": 49874487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874487", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I like the idea of TOR, but whenever I used it, I hit a speed penalty.", "excerpt": "I like the idea of TOR, but whenever I used it, I hit a speed penalty. This, in turn, handicaps me searching for information. If they could fix this problem then I would be more likely to make use of TOR. We really need to think long-term about a future web that isn't ruined by Google etc... while also not being locked down such as via age-gating.", "context": "", "use_case": "searching for information", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-Hosting on the Dark Web"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Privacy and anonymity", "summary": "Used to reduce tracking, and seen as one piece of a broader privacy toolkit.", "quotes": [{"id": 740548883, "item_id": 46284305, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46284305", "by": "lrvick", "date": "2025-12-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I significantly reduce the chance of this by using VPNs and Tor for most personal traffic depending on use case", "excerpt": "Privacy is like diet, it is not a zero sum game. The less data we give to advertisers and governments the better. The point is to increase the expense of tracking and create as many holes in their databases as possible. > You can be tracked with flock cams, ring cams, or any other thousands of cams out there that are already recording you and logging your car and your details. That grocery store you went to yesterday", "context": "security practitioner advising financial institutions", "use_case": "private network traffic", "switched_from": "", "story": "Former CIA spy: agency's tools can takeover your phone, TV, and even your car"}, {"id": 790751331, "item_id": 49421958, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421958", "by": "DavidD", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "blending into a big crowd (Tor at its default size)\nbeats a bespoke hardened setup that makes you the only one who looks like that.", "excerpt": "I built this after a thread here about Alibaba using an audio-context trick to fingerprint visitors. I knew a fair number of fingerprinting methods but not that one, and I wanted to see all of them in one place, running against my own browser. GlassBox runs ~31 probes (canvas, WebGL/WebGPU, audio, fonts, the WASM feature set, math/engine quirks, WebRTC IP, timezone/locale, the permission and API matrices, an incognit", "context": "", "use_case": "reducing browser fingerprint", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: GlassBox \u2013 what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are"}, {"id": 790294516, "item_id": 49393407, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393407", "by": "__MatrixMan__", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Signal, GrapheneOS, Tor... this is a battle with many fronts", "excerpt": "I wish there was some kind of EFF-curated \"privacy/internet freedom\" pass that I could buy. Kagi is great, but it's not everything. Brave is great, but it's not everything. Signal, GrapheneOS, Tor... this is a battle with many fronts and it's kind of labor intensive to manage a whole bunch of subscriptions/recurring donations. I'd love to just buy the pass and rest assured that if one of the recipients of that money ", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results"}]}, {"label": "Censorship bypass", "summary": "Lets users in restrictive countries keep using the internet, with bridges helping when access is blocked.", "quotes": [{"id": 777863552, "item_id": 48616472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48616472", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable.", "excerpt": "Don't know, I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable. The only problem I see is how to get initial distribution since the tor site is blocked.", "context": "lives in Russia", "use_case": "bypassing censorship in Russia", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 778052944, "item_id": 48628309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628309", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use bridging.", "excerpt": "I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.", "context": "UK user", "use_case": "circumventing network blocks", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 753312464, "item_id": 47082029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082029", "by": "black_puppydog", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I mean, I love tor as much as the next person", "excerpt": "Sorry, but whatever you think about the laws that lead to these blockages, how else are european governments supposed to take that than a direct attack on their executive powers by a foreign government? This being besides the fact that the folks crying wolf over \"censorship\" regularly conflate flat-out lies with valuable and protected speech. Edit: I mean, I love tor as much as the next person, but imagine the reacti", "context": "", "use_case": "accessing censored information", "switched_from": "", "story": "US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere"}]}, {"label": "Paywall and TLS access", "summary": "Some use it to read paywalled articles or as a TLS option instead of archive sites.", "quotes": [{"id": 767689650, "item_id": 47980603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47980603", "by": "sanskritical", "date": "2026-05-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use only Tor", "excerpt": "https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.wired.com/story/when-robots-have-their-chatgpt-moment-remember-these-pincers/ Works for me. I use only Tor so it is actually far more accessible. Archive.is uses Google's Recaptcha, which for some reason rejects valid solutions submitted via Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different"}, {"id": 739513312, "item_id": 46219582, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46219582", "by": "1vuio0pswjnm7", "date": "2025-12-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tor is another TLS option besides using an archive", "excerpt": "I dont use a popular browser to make TCP/UDP connections or HTTP requests over the internet This group https://cabforum.org/about/membership/members/ has no control over the software I use I believe I can do better checks on who \"controls\" a domain name than Let's Encrypt. If I am the CA then I dont \"trust\" ad/tracking servers. But popular browsers do. Third party CAs are happy to take money from the people behind th", "context": "", "use_case": "accessing sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux CVEs, more than you ever wanted to know"}]}, {"label": "Remote access", "summary": "One user relied on it to remotely unlock a NixOS machine and said it worked well.", "quotes": [{"id": 756289841, "item_id": 47268115, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47268115", "by": "WorldPeas", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to use tor to remote-unlock on my nixos tower. It worked quite well!", "excerpt": "back before tailscale got good, I used to use tor to remote-unlock on my nixos tower. It worked quite well! https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Remote_disk_unlocking", "context": "NixOS tower user", "use_case": "remote disk unlock", "switched_from": "", "story": "Remotely unlocking an encrypted hard disk"}]}, {"label": "Acceptable speed", "summary": "At least one daily user says it is not that slow for them.", "quotes": [{"id": 800650624, "item_id": 50040664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50040664", "by": "reorder9695", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it, it's not that slow for me", "excerpt": "I use it, it's not that slow for me, the main issue is a lot of websites block traffic from Tor. Funnily enough Reddit allows traffic from Tor but blocks traffic from my VPN.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Site blocking", "summary": "Many websites block Tor traffic or serve heavy captchas, and reCAPTCHA can reject valid solutions sent over Tor.", "quotes": [{"id": 800650624, "item_id": 50040664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50040664", "by": "reorder9695", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it, it's not that slow for me", "excerpt": "I use it, it's not that slow for me, the main issue is a lot of websites block traffic from Tor. Funnily enough Reddit allows traffic from Tor but blocks traffic from my VPN.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad"}, {"id": 784641056, "item_id": 49040066, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040066", "by": "qlte", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the volume of captchas and blocks on my regular internet connection that I see on the occasion I use Tor", "excerpt": "> Plus, IP addresses rotate once a day This is entirely specific to the user\u2019s ISP, my \u201cdynamic\u201d IP goes months without changing. And I would be miserable if I were subjected to the volume of captchas and blocks on my regular internet connection that I see on the occasion I use Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 767689650, "item_id": 47980603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47980603", "by": "sanskritical", "date": "2026-05-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use only Tor", "excerpt": "https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.wired.com/story/when-robots-have-their-chatgpt-moment-remember-these-pincers/ Works for me. I use only Tor so it is actually far more accessible. Archive.is uses Google's Recaptcha, which for some reason rejects valid solutions submitted via Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different"}]}, {"label": "Speed penalty", "summary": "Some users find it slow enough to hamper searching for information.", "quotes": [{"id": 797991792, "item_id": 49874487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874487", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I like the idea of TOR, but whenever I used it, I hit a speed penalty.", "excerpt": "I like the idea of TOR, but whenever I used it, I hit a speed penalty. This, in turn, handicaps me searching for information. If they could fix this problem then I would be more likely to make use of TOR. We really need to think long-term about a future web that isn't ruined by Google etc... while also not being locked down such as via age-gating.", "context": "", "use_case": "searching for information", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-Hosting on the Dark Web"}]}, {"label": "Getting connected", "summary": "Where Tor is blocked, getting the software is hard and users may need to try several bridges.", "quotes": [{"id": 777863552, "item_id": 48616472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48616472", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable.", "excerpt": "Don't know, I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable. The only problem I see is how to get initial distribution since the tor site is blocked.", "context": "lives in Russia", "use_case": "bypassing censorship in Russia", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 778052944, "item_id": 48628309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628309", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use bridging.", "excerpt": "I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.", "context": "UK user", "use_case": "circumventing network blocks", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}]}, {"label": "Not for everyone", "summary": "GrapheneOS recommends a traditional VPN for most people, and one commenter calls NYM more anonymous in some respects.", "quotes": [{"id": 781318945, "item_id": 48832434, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48832434", "by": "grapheneos", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tor makes sense for some situations but we generally recommend using a traditional VPN for most people's use cases.", "excerpt": "They're making inaccurate attacks on GrapheneOS to mislead people. We have sponsorships for our server infrastructure with those companies listed here: https://grapheneos.org/sponsors We also list the sponsors of specific servers in our server documentation: https://grapheneos.org/articles/grapheneos-servers Four of our sponsors are dedicated server companies and one is a VPN company sponsored 2 dedicated servers for", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "LineageOS Statistics"}, {"id": 768094961, "item_id": 48005935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005935", "by": "t0lo", "date": "2026-05-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "More anonymous and private than tor in a lot of respects.", "excerpt": "For a vpn with mixnet that actually works I recommend NYM. Really cool tech, cool crowd, and constantly improving. More anonymous and private than tor in a lot of respects. Has all the affiliates you would expect: Snowden, Manning etc. https://nym.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymity", "switched_from": "", "story": "Midori, the first browser to offer a VPN with Mesh technology"}]}, {"label": "Relay discomfort", "summary": "One commenter avoids Tor because of the traffic that might be routed through their machine.", "quotes": [{"id": 802714352, "item_id": 50169647, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50169647", "by": "BorisMelnik", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "tor is such a cool technology but even the thought of what is getting routed through there on my machine", "excerpt": "agree I think tor is such a cool technology but even the thought of what is getting routed through there on my machine or even a machine I rent is enough for me to stay away from it", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I got over 300 Tor exit nodes removed"}]}, {"label": "Trust concerns", "summary": "One commenter warns that Tor exists to serve the CIA, pointing to its US Naval Research Laboratory origins.", "quotes": [{"id": 778096368, "item_id": 48631023, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48631023", "by": "btilly", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Tor is for the CIA. It won't work for them unless we use it as well.", "excerpt": "Tor is not for criminals. It's for you and me. No. Tor is for the CIA. It won't work for them unless we use it as well. Criminals also find it useful. It's easy to verify this. Tor was originally written by Paul Syverson, Michael G. Reed, and David Goldschlag. While all three were working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymity network", "switched_from": "", "story": "Never Give Them Your Face"}]}], "who": [{"by": "doomsday1460", "context": "self-described hacktivist", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937572", "date": "2026-07-16"}, {"by": "yurish", "context": "UK user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628309", "date": "2026-06-22"}, {"by": "WorldPeas", "context": "NixOS tower user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47268115", "date": "2026-03-05"}, {"by": "lrvick", "context": "security practitioner advising financial institutions", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46284305", "date": "2025-12-15"}], "tags": ["for censored regions", "for privacy-focused users", "for travelers", "for remote server access", "runs on Android via Termux"], "use_cases": ["anonymous browsing", "searching for information", "reducing browser fingerprint", "anonymizing traffic", "anonymous account signup", "anonymity network"], "compared": [{"slug": "tailscale", "name": "Tailscale", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "grapheneos", "name": "GrapheneOS", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48609385", "title": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166257", "title": "How I got over 300 Tor exit nodes removed", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50022266", "title": "A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49870295", "title": "Self-Hosting on the Dark Web", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421948", "title": "Show HN: GlassBox \u2013 what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49388154", "title": "Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 2}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2, "warn": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 802714352, "item_id": 50169647, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50169647", "by": "BorisMelnik", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "tor is such a cool technology but even the thought of what is getting routed through there on my machine", "excerpt": "agree I think tor is such a cool technology but even the thought of what is getting routed through there on my machine or even a machine I rent is enough for me to stay away from it", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I got over 300 Tor exit nodes removed"}, {"id": 800650624, "item_id": 50040664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50040664", "by": "reorder9695", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it, it's not that slow for me", "excerpt": "I use it, it's not that slow for me, the main issue is a lot of websites block traffic from Tor. Funnily enough Reddit allows traffic from Tor but blocks traffic from my VPN.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad"}, {"id": 797991792, "item_id": 49874487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874487", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I like the idea of TOR, but whenever I used it, I hit a speed penalty.", "excerpt": "I like the idea of TOR, but whenever I used it, I hit a speed penalty. This, in turn, handicaps me searching for information. If they could fix this problem then I would be more likely to make use of TOR. We really need to think long-term about a future web that isn't ruined by Google etc... while also not being locked down such as via age-gating.", "context": "", "use_case": "searching for information", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-Hosting on the Dark Web"}, {"id": 790751331, "item_id": 49421958, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421958", "by": "DavidD", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "blending into a big crowd (Tor at its default size)\nbeats a bespoke hardened setup that makes you the only one who looks like that.", "excerpt": "I built this after a thread here about Alibaba using an audio-context trick to fingerprint visitors. I knew a fair number of fingerprinting methods but not that one, and I wanted to see all of them in one place, running against my own browser. GlassBox runs ~31 probes (canvas, WebGL/WebGPU, audio, fonts, the WASM feature set, math/engine quirks, WebRTC IP, timezone/locale, the permission and API matrices, an incognit", "context": "", "use_case": "reducing browser fingerprint", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: GlassBox \u2013 what the browser reveals, and how identifiable you are"}, {"id": 790294516, "item_id": 49393407, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393407", "by": "__MatrixMan__", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Signal, GrapheneOS, Tor... this is a battle with many fronts", "excerpt": "I wish there was some kind of EFF-curated \"privacy/internet freedom\" pass that I could buy. Kagi is great, but it's not everything. Brave is great, but it's not everything. Signal, GrapheneOS, Tor... this is a battle with many fronts and it's kind of labor intensive to manage a whole bunch of subscriptions/recurring donations. I'd love to just buy the pass and rest assured that if one of the recipients of that money ", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results"}, {"id": 784641056, "item_id": 49040066, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040066", "by": "qlte", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the volume of captchas and blocks on my regular internet connection that I see on the occasion I use Tor", "excerpt": "> Plus, IP addresses rotate once a day This is entirely specific to the user\u2019s ISP, my \u201cdynamic\u201d IP goes months without changing. And I would be miserable if I were subjected to the volume of captchas and blocks on my regular internet connection that I see on the occasion I use Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 783001153, "item_id": 48937572, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937572", "by": "doomsday1460", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I mostly recommend that you use Tor in the background", "excerpt": "Welcome to The H.O.B Ghost Project! I am the messenger of Anonymous, I can also be known as Vic Vee The Hazel Flamewalker, Twisty Charm, Enderroot46, Doomsday1460 and Darknet Doom, oh and I'm a gray hat hacker and a hacktivist and I love watching ethical hacking tutorials, I also like to sing at times, and I might do reactions too and I like Bitcoin and hints the '@TheHOBGhostProject' this is a profile/channel of The", "context": "self-described hacktivist", "use_case": "anonymizing traffic", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Made a Channel on Primal.net"}, {"id": 781318945, "item_id": 48832434, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48832434", "by": "grapheneos", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tor makes sense for some situations but we generally recommend using a traditional VPN for most people's use cases.", "excerpt": "They're making inaccurate attacks on GrapheneOS to mislead people. We have sponsorships for our server infrastructure with those companies listed here: https://grapheneos.org/sponsors We also list the sponsors of specific servers in our server documentation: https://grapheneos.org/articles/grapheneos-servers Four of our sponsors are dedicated server companies and one is a VPN company sponsored 2 dedicated servers for", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "LineageOS Statistics"}, {"id": 778324897, "item_id": 48645306, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48645306", "by": "Hizonner", "date": "2026-06-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "fooled around with an OpenRouter account over Tor", "excerpt": "I use OpenRouter all the time on an account for which I never supplied a phone number, email address, or anything of the kind. Maybe that was because I used an Ethereum wallet to authenticate, and paid in cryptocurrency (well, if USDC counts as \"cryptocurrency\"). Which admittedly makes OpenRouter's nosebleed prices even higher in effect, and supports some organizations I'd really rather not. And it's an oldish accoun", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous account signup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Anthropic banned me from using Claude Code and I don't know what to do"}, {"id": 778096368, "item_id": 48631023, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48631023", "by": "btilly", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Tor is for the CIA. It won't work for them unless we use it as well.", "excerpt": "Tor is not for criminals. It's for you and me. No. Tor is for the CIA. It won't work for them unless we use it as well. Criminals also find it useful. It's easy to verify this. Tor was originally written by Paul Syverson, Michael G. Reed, and David Goldschlag. While all three were working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymity network", "switched_from": "", "story": "Never Give Them Your Face"}, {"id": 778052944, "item_id": 48628309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48628309", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use bridging.", "excerpt": "I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.", "context": "UK user", "use_case": "circumventing network blocks", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 777875152, "item_id": 48617197, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48617197", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "eventually I could connect", "excerpt": "I changed ISPs when moved from one city to another, no difference. Yes, there were several episodes when connecting required about half an hour of playing changing setting but eventually I could connect. Nowadays it seems that the government abandoned their efforts to block Tor traffic and mainly focused on blocking VPN and Telegram.", "context": "", "use_case": "bypassing censorship in the UK", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 777863552, "item_id": 48616472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48616472", "by": "yurish", "date": "2026-06-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable.", "excerpt": "Don't know, I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable. The only problem I see is how to get initial distribution since the tor site is blocked.", "context": "lives in Russia", "use_case": "bypassing censorship in Russia", "switched_from": "", "story": "VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'"}, {"id": 777511536, "item_id": 48594471, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48594471", "by": "roserugco", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tor (onion) is great to use internet without complexity and with security.", "excerpt": "Any terminal follows Unix Linux terminal commands. You can learn linux on freecodecamp. Fact is that it is actually hard to setup on this phone because we going OS into OS: > Android > Termux android terminal (pkg install package_name) > ubunutu (sudo apt install package) Tor (onion) is great to use internet without complexity and with security. You will need to have basic understanding of: 1. Linux commands 2. Tor (", "context": "", "use_case": "private internet access", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best resources for learning how to build a forum back end?"}, {"id": 768094961, "item_id": 48005935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005935", "by": "t0lo", "date": "2026-05-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "More anonymous and private than tor in a lot of respects.", "excerpt": "For a vpn with mixnet that actually works I recommend NYM. Really cool tech, cool crowd, and constantly improving. More anonymous and private than tor in a lot of respects. Has all the affiliates you would expect: Snowden, Manning etc. https://nym.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymity", "switched_from": "", "story": "Midori, the first browser to offer a VPN with Mesh technology"}, {"id": 767689650, "item_id": 47980603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47980603", "by": "sanskritical", "date": "2026-05-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use only Tor", "excerpt": "https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.wired.com/story/when-robots-have-their-chatgpt-moment-remember-these-pincers/ Works for me. I use only Tor so it is actually far more accessible. Archive.is uses Google's Recaptcha, which for some reason rejects valid solutions submitted via Tor.", "context": "", "use_case": "browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different"}, {"id": 756289841, "item_id": 47268115, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47268115", "by": "WorldPeas", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to use tor to remote-unlock on my nixos tower. It worked quite well!", "excerpt": "back before tailscale got good, I used to use tor to remote-unlock on my nixos tower. It worked quite well! https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Remote_disk_unlocking", "context": "NixOS tower user", "use_case": "remote disk unlock", "switched_from": "", "story": "Remotely unlocking an encrypted hard disk"}, {"id": 753312464, "item_id": 47082029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082029", "by": "black_puppydog", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I mean, I love tor as much as the next person", "excerpt": "Sorry, but whatever you think about the laws that lead to these blockages, how else are european governments supposed to take that than a direct attack on their executive powers by a foreign government? This being besides the fact that the folks crying wolf over \"censorship\" regularly conflate flat-out lies with valuable and protected speech. Edit: I mean, I love tor as much as the next person, but imagine the reacti", "context": "", "use_case": "accessing censored information", "switched_from": "", "story": "US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere"}, {"id": 742689232, "item_id": 46418077, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46418077", "by": "keepamovin", "date": "2025-12-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Tor and use it in BrowserBox", "excerpt": "Legal question for the Tor team (disclaimer, I love Tor and use it in BrowserBox): - Does Tor need an OFAC license to supply to Russian and Iranian (and other sanctioned entities)? What's your approach to stay compliant and globally helpful? I know 50% of your funding comes from US government (or did a few years back, still?), does this give you extra pathways to engage those regions? I'm wondering because the system", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymous browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tor staying ahead of censors in 2025"}, {"id": 740548883, "item_id": 46284305, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46284305", "by": "lrvick", "date": "2025-12-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I significantly reduce the chance of this by using VPNs and Tor for most personal traffic depending on use case", "excerpt": "Privacy is like diet, it is not a zero sum game. The less data we give to advertisers and governments the better. The point is to increase the expense of tracking and create as many holes in their databases as possible. > You can be tracked with flock cams, ring cams, or any other thousands of cams out there that are already recording you and logging your car and your details. That grocery store you went to yesterday", "context": "security practitioner advising financial institutions", "use_case": "private network traffic", "switched_from": "", "story": "Former CIA spy: agency's tools can takeover your phone, TV, and even your car"}, {"id": 739513312, "item_id": 46219582, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46219582", "by": "1vuio0pswjnm7", "date": "2025-12-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Tor is another TLS option besides using an archive", "excerpt": "I dont use a popular browser to make TCP/UDP connections or HTTP requests over the internet This group https://cabforum.org/about/membership/members/ has no control over the software I use I believe I can do better checks on who \"controls\" a domain name than Let's Encrypt. If I am the CA then I dont \"trust\" ad/tracking servers. But popular browsers do. Third party CAs are happy to take money from the people behind th", "context": "", "use_case": "accessing sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux CVEs, more than you ever wanted to know"}, {"id": 738763907, "item_id": 46172744, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46172744", "by": "chaz6", "date": "2025-12-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I also have Tor installed which is useful when roaming.", "excerpt": "I am in the UK, and I work for a combined FNO/ISP (a company that owns and operates both the access network and the internet service). It makes me angry that corporations and governments are ruining what was once a thriving network that allowed people to communicate freely with one another. I hope that we will be able to save what remains before it's completely out of our control. My fear is that eventually all devic", "context": "", "use_case": "anonymity when roaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?"}]}