Tor Browser utilizes the Tor network, which is a series of virtual tunnels, to allow people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features.

How does the Tor Browser keep my internet activity anonymous?

The Tor Browser uses the Tor network, which consists of more than six thousand relays located worldwide, to hide the users' location and online traffic. This ensures anonymity and avoids your activities from being seen by others.

What is Tor Browser?

The Tor Browser is the flagship product from the Tor Project. The web browser is based on a modified version of Mozilla Firefox ESR that includes extras like the Tor proxy, TorButton, TorLauncher, NoScript, and HTTPS Everywhere extensions.

Who uses the Tor Browser?

With Tor Browser having made Tor more accessible to everyday internet users and activists, Tor was an instrumental tool during the Arab Spring beginning in late 2010. It not only protected people's identity online but also allowed them to access critical resources, social media, and websites which were blocked.

Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.

Groups such as Indymedia recommend Tor for safeguarding their members' online privacy and security. Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recommend Tor as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. Corporations use Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive analysis, and to protect sensitive procurement patterns from eavesdroppers. They also use it to replace traditional VPNs, which reveal the exact amount and timing of communication. Which locations have employees working late? Which locations have employees consulting job-hunting websites? Which research divisions are communicating with the company's patent lawyers?

A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations.

Is Tor better than a VPN?

Tor is not a VPN. Tor is a free browser similar to Chrome or Firefox, but it includes features that encrypt your IP address, making your browsing sessions private. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is software that can change your IP address when you use any browser installed on your PC. To learn more about VPNs, you can read this article.

What's New

  • Alpha version updated to 13.5 Alpha 8

All Platforms

  • Bug tor-browser#42288: Allow language spoofing in status messages

Windows + macOS + Linux

  • Bug tor-browser#42302: The allowed ports string contains a typo
  • Bug tor-browser#42231: Improve the network monitor patch for http onion resources
  • Bug tor-browser#42299: After adding incorrect bridge addres on user cannot go back to the Connection page

Linux

  • Bug tor-browser#17560: Downloaded URLs disk leak on Linux
  • Bug tor-browser#42306: Tor Browser crashes when extensions popups are opened with Wayland enabled
  • Bug tor-browser-build#41017: Disable Nvidia shader cache

Build SystemAll Platforms

  • Bug tor-browser-build#41027: Remove tb-build-04 and tb-build-05 from tools/signing/download-unsigned-sha256sums-gpg-signatures-from-people-tpo
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40936: Revert tor-browser-build#40933
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40995: Use cdn.stagemole.eu instead of cdn.devmole.eu in download-unsigned-sha256sums-gpg-signatures-from-people-tpo
  • Bug rbm#40064: Using exec on project with no git_url/hg_url is causing warning

Windows + macOS + Linux

  • Bug tor-browser-build#41031: Add command to unsign .mar files and compare with sha256sums-unsigned-build.txt

Windows

  • Bug tor-browser-build#41030: Add command to unsign .exe files and compare with sha256sums-unsigned-build.txt

Android

  • Bug tor-browser-build#41024: Fix android filenames in Release Prep issue templates

Release notes for Tor Browser 13.0.5

This release updates Firefox to 115.5.0esr, tor to 0.4.8.9 and OpenSSL to 3.0.12. In addition, it also includes some bug fixes (see changelog for details).

The full changelog since Tor Browser 13.0.3 is:

All Platforms

  • Updated OpenSSL to 3.0.12
  • Updated tor to 0.4.8.9
  • Bug tor-browser#42275: Rebase Tor Browser Stable to 115.5.0esr
  • Bug tor-browser#42277: Enable storage.sync to fix broken webextensions

Windows + macOS + Linux

  • Updated Firefox to 115.5.0esr
  • Bug tor-browser#41341: Fix style and position of "Always Prioritize Onions" wingpanel
  • Bug tor-browser#42108: Tor Circuit button not shown if TLS handshake fails
  • Bug tor-browser#42184: Setting "Homepage and new windows" ignores "Blank Page" value
  • Bug tor-browser#42188: Donations are asked repeatedly when I click New identity button
  • Bug tor-browser#42194: Blank Net Error page on name resolution failure

Windows + macOS

  • Bug tor-browser#42154: Empty the clipboard on browser shutdown only if content comes from private browsing windows

Android

  • Updated GeckoView to 115.5.0esr
  • Bug tor-browser#42074: YEC 2023 Takeover for Android Stable
  • Bug tor-browser#42287: Backport security fixes (Android & wontfix) from Firefox 120 to 115.5 - based Tor Browser
  • Build SystemAll Platforms
  • Update Go to 1.21.4
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40934: Remove $bundle_locales from signing scripts now that we're on ALL for everything
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40982: Fix logging in tools/signing/do-all-signing
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40989: Add .nobackup files to reproducible and disposable directores
  • Bug tor-browser-build#41006: Fix typo in finished-signing-clean-linux signer

macOS

  • Bug tor-browser-build#29815: Sign our macOS bundles on Linux
  • Bug tor-browser-build#41005: Unpack macOS bundle to /var/tmp instead of /tmp in rcodesign-notary-submit step
  • Bug tor-browser-build#41007: gatekeeper-bundling.sh refers to old .tar.gz archive
  • Bug tor-browser-build#41014: Update libdmg-hfsplus to drop the OpenSSL patch
  • Bug tor-browser-build#41020: Opening MacOS dmg file is causing a warning, since 13.0

Previous Release Notes:

This release backports important security updates from Firefox 115.4.0esr and

This release updates Firefox to 115.4.0esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. We also backported the Android-specific security updates from Firefox 119.

All Platforms

  • Bug tor-browser#42185: Rebase stable browsers on top of 115.4.0esr
  • Bug tor-browser#42191: Backport security fixes (Android & wontfix) from Firefox 119 to 115.4 - based Tor Browser
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40975: libstdc++.so.6 is included twice in tor-browser

Windows + macOS + Linux

  • Updated Firefox to 115.4.0esr
  • Bug tor-browser#42182: Default Search Engine Does Not Persist Through Shift to New Identity

Android

  • Updated GeckoView to 115.4.0esr

Build SystemAll Platforms

  • Updated Go to 1.21.3
  • Bug tor-browser-build#40976: Update download-unsigned-sha256sums-gpg-signatures-from-people-tpo to fetch from tb-build-02 and tb-build-03
  • Bug rbm#40062: Copy input directories to containers recursively

Windows + Linux

  • Bug tor-browser-build#40991: Fix creation of downloads-windows-x86_64.json and downloads-linux-x86_64.json

Windows

  • Bug tor-browser-build#40984: The PDBs for .exe are not included

Linux

  • Bug tor-browser-build#40979: Add redirects from old Linux bundle filename to the new one