Tor Browser 12.5.5 / 13.0 Alpha 5

Overview

Privacy-minded users know well the worth of VPN and HTTP web proxy to browse anonymously. However, with those you have to either pay for a premium account, or tolerate a whole load of advertisements.

Tor Browser Bundle by The Tor Project gives you the ability to browse anonymously and securely free of charge. It allows technically unskilled users avoid complex configurations. You can, of course, download the Tor client and adjust your settings manually, but the beginning users can resort to downloading a portable Tor browser, extract the application and run it as it is.

Why is Tor an Onion? Think onion layers of encryption. Tor used to be the U.S. Naval Lab project. Now, it is a community supported onion routing technology that is a donationware. It means Tor Bowser bundle is free to download, but developers welcome donations to continue working on security wholes and upgrades. In fact, it is highly recommended you always download the latest version of Tor Browser because it has the latest security breaches fixed.

Based on Firefox, Tor implements enhanced privacy and security state-of-the-art technology and volunteer support of international relay systems, the Vidalia network connection utility. Tor offers protection against Internet surveillance based on traffic analysis. Tor bounces your communication all around the world. Thus, the surveillance, whoever it represents, is unable to learn what sites you visit, your physical location and your affiliation to any business or your sensitive data, like payment details.

Installation

Great thing about Tor Browser Bundle is it is a portable tool you can download and extract to your flash drive, and run it on any PC later. Tor works on: Windows XP/Vista/7/8 Linux Macintosh OS X Once extracted and launched, Tor connection automatically looks for available Tor node, establishes a handshake and launches the browser.

Interface

The extracted suite includes Vidalia Control Panel, a small comprehensive and self-descriptive dialog box. From there, you can access configuration settings and manage your connection. However, beginning users may proceed with the browser as it is. Tor Browser is based on Mozilla with several key features, like NoScipt, Cookie Protection manager and Start Page, secure search engine that does not collect your browsing data.

Pros

• A free browsing anonymizer, Tor handles your connections automatically.
• It is portable, self-extracting suite.
• Numerous configuration settings for technically advanced users.
• Encrypted traffic.
• The developer is a reputable, established community that focuses on security and anonymity.
• Free and open-source.

Cons

Although it provides anonymity, you will have to compromise on speed. Tor significantly slows down your browsing experience. However, most users do not use it as their default everyday browsers, resorting to Tor in special cases. Having said that, Tor Browser Bundle is a number one solution for security minded people.

Alternatives