Use Tor To Maintain Online Anonymity

WikiLeaks and the recent Egyptian political revolution are two great examples of what Anonymity software can do. Tor is a unique virtual torprojecttunnels network, which ensures online activities and location remains undetected.

The Tor Project was awarded the Free Software Foundation’s for 2010 for being the most influential Social Benefit Project. This was for the crucial role the software played in delivering 36 million people in Egypt freedom of access and expression, while remain anonymous. Its continued role in helping the people of Iran too is hugely recommended the world over.

Project Tor pretty much rides on all types of software and comes with a built-in browser. This enables it to run on virtually every type of OS, which is a critical feature, which ensures privacy for individuals and organizations on public networks.

Tor provides developers unique capability of developing applications for personal and organizational use for public networking but retaining privacy. Tor allows, “Visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages and other communication forms.

 

Tor is Onion routing technology

Tor is an onion routing project, which originated in the labs of US Naval Research. In fact, after its initial use as secretive-communication-protecting software, it is now a BSD License (open source) project available on a free-to-use network.

Every data stream on Tor is encrypted and relayed in short bursts or incoherent data to the next tor relay, where it is again encrypted. This original data stream is beyond detection and is called the onion routing technology.

This system of tunneled routing ensures the websites that a Tor user visits do not learn of their physical location, Besides, Tor even allows you to access web sites, which are blocked or are behind firewalls.

Tor Browser Bundle

These features are possible because of the unique Tor Browser Bundle, which allows using platforms such as Mac OS X, Windows and Linux without any software installations as it is typically able to run on USB flash drives.

If you are an avid Instant Messaging fan, then the Tor IM Browser Bundles enables it as well as allows you to chat over Tor.

Once the Tor Browser is installed, the Vidalia Window (the control panel) opens up and Firefox too automatically starts with the installation of Tor.

The key fact is that though Tor ensures your privacy by making it impossible to detect the origin of the web traffic by encrypting all inside the Tor network, where it fails is with the encryption of traffic between the Tor network and its final destination.

Secondly, it disables scripts by default and only web sites with minimal designs will work. However, activating the blue S icon will enable scripts and all sites will be accessible. Again, with Linux version Flash features do not work so easily.

Tor is application independent

Tor works at the level of the Transmission Control Protocol. Polipo or Privoxy proxy servers are generally used while browsing.

With the right software, such as Tor and its browser bundle your online activities can remain private and exclusive.

You can download Tor from this Link, for installation instruction of Tor on Linux, please follow the installation guide in Tor documentation. For Ubuntu/LinuxMint and Debian follow instructions in this Link.

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