Tor Browser is the leading choice for online privacy and anonymity. Despite its negative reputation for being used by criminals, it is also utilized for government operations, for activists, for whistleblowers, and in some cases by citizens in countries where censorship is very prominent in their media.

Tor stands for The Onion Router. Tor Browser encrypts your traffic from your source node to a web destination through three independent nodes containing 3 additional layers of encryption along the way. There are thousands of nodes in the Tor network. Each time data is transmitted through the web, your traffic is routed through a new random path among 3 of these nodes. No single node is aware of the full path from source to destination. If used properly Tor can make it extremally difficult to perform targeted analysis of the end user.

It is counterproductive to use Tor Browser to sign into websites that contain your real ID. The idea behind using Tor as an anonymizing network is that you never transmit information that can be linked back to you. Before signing into a website via Tor, make sure to check for HTTPS. When you sign into HTTP websites, your ID may be captured by a Tor exit node. Similarly for true anonymity it is important to not use any Plugins or Extensions as these generate a session fingerprint unique to you.

The primary disadvantage to Tor is the slower means of access. While your data is routed through various nodes across the world this creates latency in page load times.