Honestly, however, I don't see myself ever needing to visit. onion sites primarily exist to protect the site owner from being identified. One option is bridges, but how rare is it for these to be 'found' or something like that? The FAQ mentions that some places are able to block Tor bridges, so I'm assuming there must be some identifying factor? An option to resolve that a bit is using a VPN before Tor, but that essentially has the exact same problem that I mentioned in point 1, right? One concern that I have has to do with ISPs/other being able to recognize that you use Tor. However, is there any other significant difference in the process itself, or is it primarily what I mentioned above? This is one clear benefit I can understand. Because Tor route everything through three relays, nobody has all of the data, which makes it safer. I'll go through my questions one by one:Ī common criticism of VPNs is that, while you may hide your activity from an ISP, it's still all in one place. However, what I don't entirely get is the differences between what Tor does, and what a VPN + hardened browser could do. So, I've heard for a very long time that Tor comes out on top in terms of private browsing, to the point where privacy-based Linux distributions (such as Tails) route all connections through Tor. I am wondering why Tor is superior, however. I am not suggesting that a VPN makes you anonymous (because that's not true). I am not suggesting that there are not benefits.

Preface, since I know the title alone will offend some people:

Benefits of using tor browser