Tor (anonymity network)

How it works and how it can help you protect your identity online

Tor Browser definition

The Tor Browser is a web broswer that anonymizes your web traffic using the Tor network, making it easy to protect your identity online.

If you're investigating a competitor, researching an opposing litigant in a legal dispute, or just think it's creepy for your ISP or the government to know what websites you visit, then the Tor Browser might be the right solution for you.

A few caveats: Browsing the web over Tor is slower than the clearnet, and some major web services block Tor users. Tor Browser is also illegal in authoritarian regimes that want to prevent citizens from reading, publishing, and communicating anonymously. Journalists and dissidents around the world have embraced Tor as a cornerstone of democracy online today, and researchers are hard at work improving Tor's anonymity properties.

Where to download Tor Browser

Tor Browser is available for Linux, Mac and Windows, and has also been ported to mobile. You can download desktop versions from the Tor Project website. If you're on Android, find OrBot or OrFox on the Google Play Store or F-Droid. iOS users can grab OnionBrowser from the Apple App Store.

How to use the Tor Browser on mobile and cell phones

More and more people are browsing the web from their phones, and in poorer parts of the world that are mobile first, people are browsing the web only from their phones. As the Tor Project has spent a couple years working to build a better Tor Browser for mobile phone users.

In September 2019, the Tor Project announced the official release of Tor Browser for Android, replacing the Guardian Project's Orfox as the officially endorsed Tor Browser for Android. (The Guardian Project's similarly named Orbot, a Tor proxy for Android that lets you tunnel all your app traffic over Tor, not just web traffic, continues to be alive and well

Due to technical restrictions on Apple's proprietary iOS platform, the Tor Project has not yet released an official Tor Browser for iPhone and iPad users, but endorses OnionBrowser for iOS users who want to browse the web anonymously. Major security improvements are in the pipeline for OnionBrowser, including fixing some information leakage issues and enabling per-website security parameters. The latest and greatest version of OnionBrowser should be out by early November 2019