Privacy online is a growing concern for those who surf the Internet. 53 percent of internet users said they were more worried about their online privacy this year than they were last year when they were questioned in January 2019.
Despite these growing issues, web users are moving to different software solutions, such as proxy sites, alternate browsers or private networks. Choosing can be difficult, so we built a guide comparing two of the most common choices for the pros and cons: Tor and VPN.
Tor and VPNs are both proxy-based applications intended to improve user privacy while accessing the internet. However, they are very different beasts which rarely cross on a practical level of real life. Fortunately, GeeksOcean is here to direct you through the discrepancies and help you understand which of the two solutions is right for your privacy security.
What Should You Use?
There's an especially easy way to decide whether Tor is right for you, or if you should use a VPN instead:
Going into more depth, Tor is absolutely free on the internet and offers true anonymity, but it's not without its caveats. Tor is the slower of the two choices, so much so that it is a bad choice for day-to-day internet use and allows ordinary tasks like watching all but impossible YouTube videos. It's also not necessary to shield yourself while torrenting, which we'll discuss later in the post.
Conversely, if you do anything particularly illegal or if your name is Edward Snowden, VPNs do not offer true anonymity and are unlikely to cover you. Nonetheless, they do have real privacy advantages when browsing the internet at minimal cost to the user, and can also unblock the downloading of catalogs from Netflix or BBC iPlayer outside their target countries-for a fee.
What is Tor?
The term Tor emerged as an acronym for "The Onion Router", and refers to the layering of data encryption. It is a non-profit organization that performs work online and creates privacy resources. The Tor browser is a resource that anyone can download for mobile, Linux, Mac, Windows.
How Tor Works?
The Tor browser will mask your identity online by transferring your traffic around numerous Tor servers. When your traffic passes through these other network servers, the data is encrypted so that no one can track your movements.
Tor has privacy layers similar to an onion's layers, and thus its name. The more users of Tor who use those servers, the more the traffic is anonymous. These protective layers are created via a labyrinth of middle relays, end relays and bridges.
Middle relays are routers that manage traffic along the way, and that anyone at home can make. End relays are the last relay in the chain and this is the IP address or numerical identifier from which your connection appears to come. Such websites are vulnerable to targets by police and copyright holders if any criminal activity is identified. Bridges are Tor routers that are not identified publicly and IP blockers protect them. These allow for encryption, even in countries that block all publicly listed Tor relays on a regular basis.
Every relay knows the router's IP address only in advance. When the traffic goes through the relay, the initial IP address is lost, and it is replaced by the end relay.
Not everybody who uses Tor has to operate a relay, but the program is based on a group of people willing to do so. The more relays that run, the faster the browser can operate and the more stable it will be.
Tor Pros:
- User-Friendly- The Tor browser is similar to other browsers you have previously used. It is available to many people and easy to use, making it user-friendly.
- Free- It's free to download and use the Tor browser. More experienced users will also be able to access the open-source software and make the coding improvements as they wish.
- Offers True Anonymity and Very Secure- Tor preserves your anonymity by not revealing your IP address to websites that you are visiting. Anyone from journalists and democratic activists to your average Joe can take advantage of this platforms to keep their knowledge secure from authoritarian regimes or big companies.
- Distributed Network- Almost impossible to shut down or target seriously.
- A powerful anti-censorship tool.
Connection to the dark web (Tor Hidden Services) includes Tor. But since this comparison article only really compares Tor to VPNs for open internet access, we're not going to list this important feature as a "pro" here.
Tor Cons:
- Very Slow- Your data is bounced randomly through a number of nodes, each of which may be anywhere in the world and thus painfully slow down your experience. If your internet connection is good enough, then Tor might be enough for casual web surfing, but serious buffering problems still make streaming video content wildly impractical.
- Not Suitable For Filesharing With P2P- There's no way to stop you (and people do) from using BitTorrent over Tor, but its diabolically weak performance can have a domino effect by slowing down the entire torrenting network for any other user. Worse still, if copyrighted content is involved, Tor node volunteers can have trouble with other people's acts-which may be serious and life-threatening for others.
- Easily Blocked- The Tor exit node list is publicly available which means providers can easily limit access. However, this issue can be mitigated by using the Tor bridges.
- CAPTCHAs- CloudFlare is taking an aggressive stance against users of Tor. And since CloudFlare hosts a very large percentage of the websites around the world, Tor users are likely to be threatened regularly by CAPTCHAs and other similar protection measures.
- Legal Trouble- Anyone can use the Tor browser. If anyone takes part in criminal activity and you are the escape relay, you will be monitored for the traffic. Governments are often very vigilant with and keep a close watch on Tor users. You may actually be identified as a suspect by being a Tor user, and have all of your actions monitored.
What is a VPN?
A VPN, short for "Virtual Private Network", is a program that can alter your IP address and encrypt your traffic over the Internet. A majority of VPNs were initially used at businesses, allowing all company network workers to access confidential information in private. It has now developed to keep the online activity of a person; private from hackers, government surveillance, and any other Internet hazards.
This VPN server serves as a middleman between your computer and the internet.
- Websites and everyone else on the internet can't see who you are (i.e. you are an real IP address on the internet). Everything that they see is the VPN server's IP address.
- Your Internet Provider (ISP) is unable to see what you are getting up to on the Internet. It can see you have connected to the IP address of the VPN server, but nothing else.
- The integrity of your internet data is also not available to your ISP since the connection between your computer and the VPN server is safely encrypted.
Naturally, what your ISP can not see will not be noticed by your government unless it has singled you out for targeted monitoring.
How a VPN Works?
A VPN has a server network spread across the globe. When your internet request is made, it must go through one of the VPN servers until it hits the internet. When this alternative server passes, your IP address will be changed. This not only protects your identity, but your computer will appear as if it is in a different location, allowing you to safely access the resources of the local network.
For example, if you're visiting China and want to access Facebook, you're not going to be able to do it via their internet connection because the Chinese government banned the site. However, using a VPN that links your computer to an Internet server in a country where you are allowed to use Facebook, will allow you to access the web in China.
VPN Pros:
- Speed- Using a VPN has some effect on your internet browsing speeds but this impact is negligible compared to Tor. (and reduced by connecting to a VPN server near your real geographic location)
- No Pretentious Eyes- It protects you from government blanket surveillance, ISP surveillance and the most basic form of web monitoring. (IP logging)
- Unblocks and Retains Streaming Libraries- VPN providers run VPN servers worldwide, making VPNs perfect for unblocking streaming services such as BBC iPlayer or Netflix's regional catalogs that impose geographical constraints on them.
- Censorship to Bypass- Like Tor, the VPNs are also useful for overcoming other forms of censorship. If your government censors content, simply link to a VPN server somewhere not censoring it.
- Encrypted Traffics- Unlike Tor, which only encrypts requests when using the browser, all traffic coming from your device can be encrypted by VPN's which makes them safer.
- Some Support Torrenting- Many VPN services explicitly cater for P2P torrent users.
VPN Cons:
- Software Failures- It needs to be working properly for a VPN to function. VPN leaks are normal when the software is not being properly configured and tested.
- No True Anonymity- They can have a high degree of privacy when browsing the internet depending on your threat model, but the VPN provider still knows your real IP address and can connect it to your internet history. VPN mitigates against this issue by using a good no logs but this only covers past behavior and also allows you to believe that the VPN does what it indirectly says it does. When forced to do so, a VPN provider will still avoid logging in, and no VPN workers would ever be able to go to jail to protect you.
- Costs Money- The more stable models cost money, although some VPNs have free options. In general, there is a monthly fee to keep your operation free.
What To Choose?
If you're a whistleblower, political dissident, or you would otherwise consider your internet activities in serious trouble, then use Tor. In this world nothing is assured, but Tor provides the highest possible degree of anonymity on the internet.
Yet everyone else can use a VPN. A strong no logs VPN protects you from your government and ISP's blanket surveillance, prevents websites and the like from seeing your real IP address and is successful in combating other forms of internet censorship.
VPNs are perfect for fun stuff like watching the full US Netflix catalog and torrenting too. And unlike Tor, they are doing these things with a marginal impact on your everyday internet life.