Tor Browser

Tor Browser is a hardened version of Firefox that carries all of its traffic over Tor, a network of relays run by volunteers around the world. Each request is wrapped in several layers of encryption and passed through three relays before it reaches the open internet, so no single point on the path knows both who you are and what you are looking at. The site you visit sees the address of the last relay instead of yours, while your internet provider or local network administrator can tell that you are using Tor but not which pages you loaded.

Beyond the network layer, the browser tries to make its users look alike. Connections are isolated per site so trackers and advertisements cannot follow you from one domain to the next, and the browser reports a standardized set of characteristics to make browser fingerprinting harder. Cookies and history are discarded when you close the session, so nothing carries over into the next one. A security level control lets you disable JavaScript and other risky features site by site or globally. Where Tor itself is blocked, bridges and pluggable transports disguise the connection so it does not look like Tor traffic. The browser also reaches .onion addresses, which are only available inside the network.

It is a reasonable choice for journalists, researchers, activists, and anyone who wants to keep their browsing separate from their identity or read material that is blocked where they live. It is a poor fit for everyday browsing that needs speed: routing through three relays adds noticeable latency, video streaming is slow, and a fair number of sites either block Tor exit nodes outright or bury visitors in captchas. Logging into a personal account undoes the anonymity for that session, and the protection covers only what happens inside the browser window, not other applications on the machine.

Note that it is not a VPN and does not replace one. There is no provider operating the relays, no server list to pick from, and nothing here tunnels traffic for the rest of your system. The Tor Project also warns against habits that make you stand out, such as installing extra add-ons or resizing the window, since anonymity here depends on blending in with everyone else running the same configuration. Builds are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android.