![]() ![]() There downsides though, which includes the way the VPN provider is able to see your IP address. There are advantages in going down this route, with one obvious bonus meaning that Tor gets hidden by the encryption delivered by the VPN.Īnother benefit of the Tor over VPN technique is that it also means your IP address does not get revealed to the Tor entry node, which is because it sees the IP address of the VPN server instead. One solution for combining the use of a VPN and Tor together is to use them in tandem via a technique called ‘Tor over VPN.’ In this arrangement the user connects, first to their VPN server and follows this by using the Tor browser. There are certainly arguments as to whether Tor and VPN should be used in tandem, but at the same time there seems to be a reasonable level of disagreement over how best to implement this. This does have the potential to give the user a double layer of privacy coverage but adopting this layered combination isn’t without controversy. ![]() With neither a VPN nor Tor being completely 100% effective as a single solution for anonymity, this raises the question of whether or not it’s a good idea to run both simultaneously. While the traffic on Tor is bounced through random nodes, it eventually exits to the internet via what is termed an ‘exit node.’ These so-called exit nodes can be hacked, or the exit node may be monitored by the owner, thereby exposing a user’s data. While Tor is certainly a powerful tool, you’ll see that right on the homepage, there is a disclaimer that Tor does not completely anonymize the user while surfing the web. This has mainly been because it provides the perfect way to access the ‘ dark web (opens in new tab),’ which is the portion of the internet not indexed by search engines and is also frequently associated with illicit activity. However, Tor has also been used for more nefarious purposes and has gained a reasonable degree of notoriety. Today, this solution gets used for a wide variety of purposes and still has an important place within official channels, including the US government looking to avoid revealing its IP address when it’s snooping around foreign web sites. Tor was subsequently released under a free license to the public and has grown in popularity ever since. The work was originally commissioned for use by US intelligence departments with their voracious requirements for securing online communications. One thing to bear in mind with the whole Tor scenario is to remember that it originally emerged as a result of research, which was carried out at the United States Research Laboratory in the 1990s. Inquisitive new users may wonder how effective Tor is though. This has obvious benefits for anyone not wanting to be traceable for the reasons outlined above. In doing so, it becomes considerably more difficult to identify what the user is doing online. The name Tor is an acronym for ‘The Onion Router’, which is a specialized browser that sends the user’s data through several anonymous servers. The Tor browser (opens in new tab) is a tool designed to make the user anonymous online, which does not use VPN technology, and therefore does not encrypt data. However, despite best efforts, concerns remain regarding being affected by these sorts of leaks when using a VPN. In other features related to this topic, we’ve recommended some approaches to mitigate the issue of VPN failure, including performing an IP leak test (opens in new tab) and using a VPN kill switch. The reality is that there can still be data leaks, where unencrypted data gets transmitted, which can include IP leaks alongside DNS leaks too. However, even with the VPN configured correctly and the service performing well, nothing is 100% secure. ![]()
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