Tor vs VPN
Both Tor and VPN networks are proxy-based technologies that are designed to increase user privacy when using the Internet. However, they are completely different monsters and rarely cross on a practical level in real life. Fortunately, ProPrivacy is here to walk you through the differences and help you understand which of the two technologies is right for protecting your privacy.
Tor or VPN – What Should You Use?
There is a particularly easy way to determine if Tor is right for you, or whether you should use a VPN instead:
Going into more detail, Tor offers true anonymity and is completely free, but it’s not without caveats. Tor is the slower of the two options, so much so that it is a poor choice for daily internet use and makes normal activities like watching YouTube videos impossible. It is also not suitable for protecting yourself when using torrenting, which we will discuss later in the article.
Conversely, VPNs do not provide true anonymity and are unlikely to protect you if you are doing something very illegal or if your name is Edward Snowden. However, they offer real privacy benefits when surfing the Internet with minimal experience costs, and they can even unblock streaming catalogs from Netflix or BBC iPlayer outside of their target countries – for a price.
What is Tor?
The name Tor originated as an acronym for The Onion Router and refers to the way data is encrypted in layers. Tor passes data between a number of randomly selected Tor nodes run by volunteers, encrypting it each time.
Each node knows where the connection is coming from and which node it is going to, but it can’t see the entire path (the circuit). This is the beauty of Tor, as there is no trust required because no one should be able to connect the user with their online activity.
The entry node can see who you are, but not what you’re doing online, while the exit node can see what you’re doing, but it doesn’t know who you are. As a result, Tor provides users with a real level of anonymity when using the Internet.
Each node is run by a volunteer. It goes without saying, then, that the more volunteers, the more secure Tor is for all of its users. For a more detailed look at Tor, including potential vulnerabilities, please see our full Tor review.
Advantages of Tour
- Provides true anonymity
- very safe
- A powerful anti-censorship tool
- Distributed network – almost impossible to purposefully shut down or attack
- free
Tor is required to access the dark web (Tor Hidden Services). But since this comparison article compares Tor to VPNs for accessing the open internet, we won’t list this important feature as ‘Professional’ here.
Tor . Cons
- Too slow – your data is bouncing randomly through a number of nodes, each of which can be anywhere in the world, thus, painfully slowing down your experience. If your internet connection is fast enough, Tor might suffice for casual web browsing, but severe buffering issues make streaming video content always highly impractical.
- Not suitable for P2P file sharing – There’s no way to stop you from using BitTorrent over Tor (and people do), but its demonically poor speed can have a domino effect by slowing down the entire torrent network for every other user. Even worse, if copyrighted material is included, Tor node volunteers could run into problems due to the actions of others – which could be critical and potentially life-threatening for some
- Easily Blocked – The list of Tor exit nodes is published openly, which means providers can easily restrict access. This problem can be mitigated, though, through the use of Tor bridges.
- Captchas – CloudFlare takes an aggressive stance towards Tor users. And since CloudFlare hosts a very large percentage of websites in the world, Tor users are likely to find themselves repeatedly challenged by CAPTCHA and other similar security measures.
Do you want to access the dark web?
If you want to access the dark web, you will need Tor or another encrypted browser like I2P. However, using a VPN with Tor can help you maintain anonymity. Even though an encrypted browser hides what you get online, your ISP will know that you downloaded Tor. Check out this Best VPN for Tor article for a list of services that will help protect your identity and learn more about accessing the dark web securely.
What is a VPN?
A VPN connects your device to a VPN server, usually operated by a commercial VPN provider. This VPN server acts as an intermediary between your device and the Internet.
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Websites and anyone else on the Internet cannot know who you are (ie you are a real IP address). All they see is the IP address of the VPN server.
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Your Internet Provider (ISP) cannot see what you are getting on the Internet. He can see that you have connected to the IP address of the VPN server, but nothing else.
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Your ISP also cannot see the content of your internet data because the connection between your device and the VPN server is securely encrypted.
Of course, what your ISP cannot see, your government will only see if they assign you to targeted surveillance. For a detailed look at what VPNs are and what they do (and can’t) please see What is a VPN and How Does It Work?
VPN Pros
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Faster – Using a VPN has some impact on your internet browsing speeds, but compared to Tor, this effect is minimal (and is reduced by connecting to a VPN server near your real geographic location)
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No prying eyes – it protects you from extensive government surveillance, ISP monitoring and the simplest form of web tracking (IP logging)
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Unlocks and supports streaming libraries – VPN providers operate VPN servers in countries all over the world, which makes great VPNs for unblocking streaming services like BBC iPlayer or Netflix regional catalogs that have geo-restrictions
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Circumvention circumvents – Like Tor, this also makes VPNs great for defeating many forms of censorship. If your government censors content, just connect to a VPN server located somewhere that is not censored
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Some support torrenting – many VPN services specifically cater to peer-to-peer torrent users.
VPN Cons
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VPNs do not provide true anonymity – depending on your threat model, they can provide a high level of privacy when browsing the internet, but the VPN provider always knows your real IP address and can relate that to your internet history.
Using a good no-logs VPN mitigates this issue but this only protects historical activity and still requires you to trust that the VPN does what it says it does implicitly. Your VPN service provider can always initiate a login when pressed to do so, and none of the VPN employees will ever be willing to go to jail to protect you.
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It’s their cost – the most reliable VPN services are priced at a few dollars per month (although there are now exceptions to this rule).
last thoughts
If you are a whistleblower, political opponent, or you could get into serious problems with your online activities, use Tor. Nothing is guaranteed in this world, but Tor offers the highest level of anonymity possible on the Internet.
However, everyone else should use a VPN. A good no-logs VPN protects you from extensive monitoring by your government and ISP, prevents websites and the like from seeing your real IP address, and is effective in combating many forms of internet censorship.
VPNs are also great for fun things like watching the full US Netflix catalog and torrenting. And unlike Tor, they do these things with little impact on your everyday online experience.
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