Tor Browser 15.0
4 comments
·October 28, 2025Redster
mhitza
> I don't do anything illegal or plan to, but being investigated alone is enough of a deterrent
Unless you live in a fully authoritarian state, there shouldn't be a reason to be investigated for using Tor. Being put on a list is a different matter, but voicing your opinions online might also get you there. If not now, in a possible, not far away grim future.
Tor Browser is a great idea, and would be more usable on a daily basis if it'd block ads by default as well.
1. Maybe some of our Chinese peers can chime in. In such circumstances you need to take a step further and use bridges to connect to the Tor network to better circumvent restrictions. As far of deep packet inspection I'm not aware of the state of the art in China, and if it's possible to evade detection.
2. Download it from a public wifi with no cameras in sight?
chasil
There are a number of useful applications of Tor that have nothing to do with secure anonymity.
If you login with your phone to a corporate restaurant's wifi, you may find a number of sites blocked. Tor can circumvent that.
Onionshare is a handy way to exchange files with multiple parties.
And for sensitive questions that you don't want in your google search history, it's quite effective with startpage or duckduckgo.
I use ffupdater from f-droid to install and maintain Tor browser, although it is available directly from f-droid.
bombcar
If you’re really paranoid use Brave browser at a library to download it the first time (over Tor).
Tor also has nothing to do with torrents.
I've never torrented anything and have been wary that doing anything with the Tor project on my not-so-private computer just sends up a beacon asking me to be investigated. I don't do anything illegal or plan to, but being investigated alone is enough of a deterrent.
I suspect this is paranoia on my part, but I would be curious to hear thoughts from this crowd.
1. If you're threat model is surveillance state, are things like this helpful or harmful? 2. If you need a tool like this, what's the best way to obtain/install this anonymously?