What Is Tor?

Forget Internet Explorer and Firefox – there’s another web browser out there that deserves consideration. And it has some rather unique features.
If you’ve never heard of The Onion Router, you’re not alone. Originating in a network of servers created by the US Navy, TOR is a data distribution model designed to protect the anonymity of its users. The non-profit organisation behind it believes people should be able to access the internet without amassing bags of cookies or having retail sites advertising the products their children looked at last week. Consequently, TOR – with its estimated one million users – is riding a wave of privacy concerns among first-world internet users.
TOR works by encrypting data streams and shuttling them throughout numerous volunteer-operated servers. That removes the clearly-defined end points associated with normal internet data transfers, confusing anyone attempting to undertake traffic analysis. Intermediary servers simply pass information along from one point to the next, which effectively absolves them of responsibility for any illegal or inappropriate material that passes through. The server establishes an encrypted directory connection and network status consensus, before TCP streams are randomly bounced through a series of encrypted relays that all look the same – rather like the layers of an onion.
Although TOR can be run through a number of interfaces; its eponymous web 1.0-style browser is available in languages ranging from Chinese and Korean to German and French. The TOR Browser is compatible with Windows, iOS and Linux using a brand new Android interface known as Orbot. The process of installing TOR is comparable to other web browsers, and it operates in a similar manner as well. The Startpage search engine yields conventional results, on a par with Bing/Yahoo but less rounded than Google’s all-conquering results.
The quality of TOR’s interface’s encryption is attested to by its military origins, with the Navy and law enforcement services continuing to use it. Its almost uncrackable encryption levels are beloved by journalists and dissidents as a method of preserving their anonymity, and protecting potentially endangered civil liberties. TOR’s lack of in-built censorship encourages people to explore the Deep Web, a murky world where website addresses usually comprise random alphanumeric strings, and where a considerable amount of illicit activity goes on. TOR’s free-download browser is also financially preferable to rival VPNs, whose security levels increase in tandem with their fees.
There are disadvantages to using TOR, not least its rather dated interface and sluggish response times. Because data travels through multiple nodes on its way to your browser, this is not the place for watching HD streams. Speed deteriorates further at peak usage times such as in the evenings in America, where TOR is most widely used. It’s also unsuitable for torrents (which reveal IP addresses, rendering the onion routing moot), and end websites can still potentially divine identifying information about individual visitors.
The security services are rightly suspicious of TOR, given its association with the murkier side of the internet, but the browser’s impermeable design has so far resisted attempts to crack the secrets of who is receiving what data. As a method of exploring the internet without leaving behind a trail of cookies and other identifying information, TOR remains peerless.