That’s why using it for streaming high-definition videos or torrenting is a bad idea. Secondly, TOR slows down browsing speed - which is not surprising at all, since your data passes through a more circuitous path. This means someone spying on you can see anything that’s in plain text, like your username and password to your Gmail account. TOR encrypts your data when it enters its network, but not before or after it. Now, let’s check out: TOR’s Limitations and How to Overcome ThemĪs useful as TOR is in maintaining anonymity, it has some drawbacks.įirstly, it doesn’t provide end-to-end encryption. Where it goes from there is something they can never find out.

Your ISP provider or someone snooping on you can map your traffic only till the entry node.

will think the request is from the exit node - not you.

Finally, it will reach the exit node, where it will be de-encrypted and forwarded to .Įach of the nodes in the TOR network, except the last one, sees only the IP address of the node that’s ahead of it. Next, it will pass through several randomly-chosen middle nodes. Your request will first go to an entry node randomly selected by the TOR network. Here’s an example to understand TOR better: Additionally, no relay can know the content of your data. When you use TOR, your data travels through many relays, none of which - except the exit node - knows its final destination.

To use TOR, you’ll need to install the TOR browser, which is free and easy to use. A relay is simply a computer inside this network.

Multi-layered encryption and thousands of relays (also called nodes) form the backbone of the TOR network. Which begs the question: How does TOR work?

TOR can help you remain anonymous, just like it’s helping over 2 million people protect their privacy daily. Similarly, anyone snooping on you can find out what you’re doing online.īut hiding your IP means preventing websites, search engines, your ISP provider, and all others from knowing what you do online. When you access a website the normal way, it can trackback the request to you using your IP address. What does masking your IP really mean? And who should you be hiding your IP from in the first place? However, before we discuss it, let’s get a couple of things straight: Want to surf the internet anonymously? One way to hide your IP is by using TOR.

How well does tor app work