Most Frequently Asked Questions

Tor Browser prevents people from knowing the websites you visit. Some entities, such as your Internet Service Provider (ISP), may be able to see that you're using Tor, but they won't know where you're going when you do.

Generally it is impossible to have perfect anonymity, even with Tor. Though there are some things you can practice to improve your anonymity while using Tor and offline.

Use Tor Browser and software specifically configured for Tor

Tor does not protect all of your computer's Internet traffic when you run it. Tor only protects applications that are properly configured to send their Internet traffic through Tor.

Web browsing:

File sharing:

Control what information you provide through web forms

If you visit a website using Tor Browser, they don't know who you are or your true location. Unfortunately many sites ask for more personal information than they need through web forms. If you sign in to that website, they still don't know your location but they know who you are. Further, if you provide: name, email, address, phone number, or any other personal information, you are no longer anonymous to that website. The best defense is to be vigilant and extremely cautious when filling out web forms.

Don't torrent over Tor

Torrent file-sharing applications have been observed to ignore proxy settings and make direct connections even when they are told to use Tor. Even if your torrent application connects only through Tor, you will often send out your real IP address in the tracker GET request, because that's how torrents work. Not only do you deanonymize your torrent traffic and your other simultaneous Tor web traffic this way, you also slow down the entire Tor network for everyone else.

Don't enable or install browser plugins

Tor Browser will block browser plugins such as Flash, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and others: they can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. Similarly, we do not recommend installing additional addons or plugins into Tor Browser, as these may bypass Tor or otherwise harm your anonymity and privacy.

Use HTTPS versions of websites

Tor will encrypt your traffic to and within the Tor network, but the encryption of your traffic to the final destination website depends on that website. To help ensure private encryption to websites, Tor Browser includes HTTPS-Only Mode to force the use of HTTPS encryption with websites that support it. However, you should still watch the browser URL bar to ensure that websites you provide sensitive information to display a padlock or onion icon in the address bar, include https:// in the URL, and display the proper expected name for the website. Also see EFF's interactive graphic explaining how Tor and HTTPS relate.

Don't open documents downloaded through Tor while online

Tor Browser will warn you before automatically opening documents that are handled by external applications. DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING. You should be very careful when downloading documents via Tor (especially DOC and PDF files, unless you use the PDF viewer that's built into Tor Browser) as these documents can contain Internet resources that will be downloaded outside of Tor by the application that opens them. This will reveal your non-Tor IP address. If you must work with files downloaded via Tor, we strongly recommend either using a disconnected computer, or using dangerzone to create safe PDF files that you can open. Under no circumstances is it safe to use BitTorrent and Tor together, however.

Use bridges and/or find company

Tor tries to prevent attackers from learning what destination websites you connect to. However, by default, it does not prevent somebody watching your Internet traffic from learning that you're using Tor. If this matters to you, you can reduce this risk by configuring Tor to use a bridge rather than connecting directly to the Tor network. Ultimately the best protection is a social approach: the more Tor users there are near you and the more diverse their interests, the less dangerous it will be that you are one of them. Convince other people to use Tor, too!

Be smart and learn more. Understand what Tor does and does not offer. This list of pitfalls isn't complete, and we need your help identifying and documenting all the issues.

Tor Browser is currently available on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android.

On Android, The Guardian Project also provides the Orbot app to route other apps on your Android device over the Tor network.

There is no official version of Tor Browser for iOS yet, as explained in this blog post. Our best available recommendation is Onion Browser.

It's strongly discouraged to install new add-ons in Tor Browser, because they can compromise your privacy and security.

Installing new add-ons may affect Tor Browser in unforeseen ways and potentially make your Tor Browser fingerprint unique. If your copy of Tor Browser has a unique fingerprint, your browsing activities can be deanonymized and tracked even though you are using Tor Browser.

Each browser's settings and features create what is called a "browser fingerprint". Most browsers inadvertently create a unique fingerprint for each user which can be tracked across the internet. Tor Browser is specifically engineered to have a nearly identical (we're not perfect!) fingerprint across its users. This means each Tor Browser user looks like many other Tor Browser users, making it difficult to track any individual user.

There's also a good chance a new add-on will increase the attack surface of Tor Browser. This may allow sensitive data to be leaked or allow an attacker to infect Tor Browser. The add-on itself could even be maliciously designed to spy on you.

Tor Browser already comes installed with one add-on — NoScript — and adding anything else could deanonymize you.

Want to learn more about browser fingerprinting? Here's an article on The Tor Blog all about it.

Generally speaking, we don't recommend using a VPN with Tor unless you're an advanced user who knows how to configure both in a way that doesn't compromise your privacy.

You can find more detailed information about Tor + VPN at our wiki.

Tor Browser can certainly help people access your website in places where it is blocked. Most of the time, simply downloading the Tor Browser and then using it to navigate to the blocked site will allow access. In places where there is heavy censorship we have a number of censorship circumvention options available, including pluggable transports.

For more information, please see the Tor Browser User Manual section on censorship circumvention.

Sure! We have a list of organizations that run Tor relays that are happy to turn your donations into better speed and anonymity for the Tor network.

These organizations are not the same as The Tor Project, Inc, but we consider that a good thing. They're run by nice people who are part of the Tor community.

Note that there can be a tradeoff here between anonymity and performance. The Tor network's anonymity comes in part from diversity, so if you are in a position to run your own relay, you will be improving Tor's anonymity more than by donating. At the same time though, economies of scale for bandwidth mean that combining many small donations into several larger relays is more efficient at improving network performance. Improving anonymity and improving performance are both worthwhile goals, so however you can help is great!