Tor alternatives

[Elestaten_Harold]

Hey, I've been using Tor for browsing for quite some time since lots of websites are blocked in my country, with Tor everything works fine except for the speed (it's really terrible), The reason why I'm looking for a more sufficient solution. so I found that some proxy and VPN services like NordVPN provide extensions for the browsers and I like the idea, however, not really sure what service should I go with, a proxy or VPN. Is there any real difference between the 2 services for a simple user like me? (mostly care about browsing - torrenting - streaming).

[bitman]

Hey, I've been using Tor for browsing for quite some time since lots of websites are blocked in my country, with Tor everything works fine except for the speed (it's really terrible), The reason why I'm looking for a more sufficient solution. so I found that some proxy and VPN services like NordVPN provide extensions for the browsers and I like the idea, however, not really sure what service should I go with, a proxy or VPN. Is there any real difference between the 2 services for a simple user like me? (mostly care about browsing - torrenting - streaming).

tor is by far the best if you're trying to hide who you are on the net and hide from anyone intercepting your transmission making it practical (but not entirely) impossible to track you. But this comes at a cost as you've noticed - a high overhead. Solutions like VPN and proxies move your performance to "better" while moving your protection backwards. Where VPN is "in between" and proxy offers the lowest security.  It comes down to how much you trust your VPN provider and how good they are at keeping government lawyers out of their systems. A proxy is very open on the inside (NordVPN is a bit complex as it's more than one server) so a single access to the proxy end point allows anyone to map out all your access and it may even have the content of the pages you read.

So it's your choice - Better speed = less security.  But _nothing_ including tor is fully secure. So figure out how thick your tinfoil hat is, and choose from there.

[richnormand]

I have been using PIA (Private Internet Access) for several years.

They do not keep connection records, have networks in several countries with decent speed. It also works with Tor but the two on top of each others results in a pretty slow speed!
Regular updates and you get several configuration options depending on the desired level of security.

[I wanted a rude username]

You can also use a virtual private server in a country with less censorship to run your own VPN or proxy. Shadowsocks is easy to set up, and has clients for every major desktop and mobile operating system. VPNs are slightly more complex, but there are many tutorials. With a VPS you have your own IP address, which has both pros (less likely to be blocked as suspicious due to other users' activity) and cons (your traffic can't hide amongst theirs).

If you have ever considered trying out Linux on a server, this would be a good opportunity to do so, for USD $5 per month (e.g. with the well-regarded DigitalOcean) or less. You could also use it for other purposes, such as hosting web sites for yourself and others.

Also, I recommend against NordVPN. They waste money on advertising seemingly everywhere yet have not been open about security issues. There are plenty of other VPN providers.

[alpher]

Years ago I played briefly with "freenet" , wonder how it's doing nowdays?

[Munich]

IMHO the best solution is:

1) Subscribe to one service (say, NORDVPN as mentioned above), and configure your router to connect to this 100% of the time.

2) Then, on each of your PC's, run OpenVPN connecting to a *different* VPN provider, such that you are connecting to a VPN service through a VPN service.

This gives you two layers of security, your ISP will not be selling your information to anyone, and neither will either of the VPN services.  Also, if you are a blogger or streamer and some psycho on the internet tries to hack you or "dox" you they will have a hard time even determining your geographical location.

Tor needs help, donations are best to let those with the proper experience maintain equipment/services to help the network out, I have only used it when in highly censored countries like china, everywhere else I just use VPN.  Remember that many people in these highly censored countries can't even purchase VPN service from anywhere and they depend on Tor and it's bridges to be able to communicate securely. For this reason I try either not to waste it's bandwidth for normal uses, or to at least run a relay when I am using it.  I am afraid to run an exit node due to some people using it for illegal purposes, this is better handled by those dedicated to the service who run exit nodes on server farms around the world.

I would never trust any single VPN service to not sell your info, I think they all do.  This is why running two in tandem is great, because the first one only knows that all you do is connect to another VPN service, and the second one only knows that you always connect from another VPN service to browse your cat memes and revealing pictures of the insides of test equipment 

[Elestaten_Harold]

UPDATE:

So I've haven't been here for a while now, and since I'm back I wanted to update this.

I've started with the NordVPN extension at first but decided that I would go with the app, first on my phone, and works really well to my surprise. If you want to check the reviews on how it works from more than one person, here . Yet that did not suffice me in the end, as I thought that It would be better if I configured it on my router. Which of course was not compatible with OpenVPN, so I picked the cheapest one from Nord's list and ordered it, in the end, configured it really easily by following their tutorials and here we are. I've installed the application on 4 devices for killswitch and cybersec features, which are great and every VPN should have these. The router is set up so that my connections go through the VPN server without needing the application specifically for security, just for the other features. I had some issues by connecting the router at first, but there is nothing that Google can't fix, to be honest.  Overall I would say it works pretty well and the speeds did not suffer as I expected them to do, the connection stable and I lose the connection rarely. Still using Tor for some cases, but people on Nord's subreddit, explained to me that some of Tor nodes are owned by Russia and America, but I don't know how much of that is true and how exactly it could damage me, as I'm not doing anything at the level of illegal that either of these governments would target me. Still,  I avoid using it as much as possible, yet still, in some cases, I find Tor useful.

[DaviFlody]

PIA, that's my favourite thing

[PKTKS]

The folks above presented the very best options.

I have just a few tips and tricks that I myself ' been using
a very long time already...

I have TOR ready to run in more than just ONE config.

E.g.  It runs unattended presenting random features
like  exit nodes (YES its more or less safe having them
because the TOR servers block the most dangerous ports already)
onions and random internal SSH and SSL clients going on..

Once the setup is ready.. it is very funny seeing my ISP
and the faceless assholes behind that totally screwed up
(seeing their data mining adds and other tips) by having
the exits randomly populated and not fixed..

All mixed up and messed with what seems my internal traffic.

Not simple but once done TOR gives you a decent privacy level

As said above just do not overload the relays with things
like downloads or trivial stuff  not sensitive....

you can mess quite a lot the so called A.I tracking you

Paul