The internet sometimes feels like a dangerous place, but with so many options to protect your data, your anonymity, and your privacy, how do you know which tool to use and when? Here is what you need to know about proxies, VPNs, and Tor.
What is a Proxy, and When Should You Use One?
A proxy server sits between you and some service that you’re connecting to, typically a website.
When you connect to the proxy server, your traffic is routed to that server before being sent along to its final destination. As a result, whatever website you’re connecting to won’t see your IP address. It’ll see the proxy server’s IP address instead.
When Should You Use a Proxy?
Proxy servers are good if you want to hide your IP address or make it appear as if your internet traffic is coming from somewhere other than your actual location.
However, regular proxy servers don’t do much beyond that.
You shouldn’t rely on them to protect your data in transit, nor should you expect them to provide any serious anonymity. If you need to access geo-blocked content on some website, a proxy server is a reasonable option. If you need to ensure that your ISP can’t read your internet traffic, a proxy server won’t help you.
What is a Virtual Private Network (VPN), and When Should You Use One?
Virtual Private Networks, usually just called VPNs, have a bit in common with proxies. Like a proxy, VPNs route your traffic through an intermediate server before it is sent along to the final destination. As a result, VPNs can be used to hide your IP address from whatever service or website you’re connecting to.
That means a VPN can be used in pretty much any situation where you’d use a proxy, but VPNs take it one step further: they encrypt your traffic.
Encryption is the process of using a mathematical algorithm to make data unreadable to anyone that is eavesdropping. In the case of a VPN, encrypting your internet traffic means that no one between you and the service you’re connecting to can read your data, not even your ISP.
VPNs Don’t Give You Perfect Privacy
The ability to disguise your location and hide what you’re doing is a pretty solid step towards increasing your online privacy, but it isn’t everything. There are still ways that you, and your traffic, can be identified.
For example, websites can collect information about your browser and your PC to identify you, a technique known as browser fingerprinting. Hiding where you’re located and preventing your ISP from snooping does nothing to help that situation.
Additionally, encrypting your internet traffic doesn’t make it completely impossible for someone that is monitoring your traffic to guess what you’re doing. By collecting information about the timing and amount of data being exchanged between you and some service, it is sometimes possible to match that pattern to a specific activity. In some ways, this is a bit like standing outside of a building with a band playing inside. You might not be able to hear the lead guitar or the vocals, but you can make out enough of the rhythm from the bass to guess what song you’re hearing.
Some VPNs will deliberately add “noise” to your encrypted traffic to prevent that kind of analysis.
When Should You Use a VPN?
Stick to a VPN when you need to hide your real location from the service you’re connecting to or when you want to hide your online activity from a casual eavesdropper, like a network administrator or your ISP.
7/10
Logging policy
No-log policy
Mobile app
Android and iOS
NordVPN is one of the fastest VPN options available. It’s also easy to use and compatible with a variety of devices. For Black Friday, you can get the Basic plan for only $2.99/month if you sign up for two years, and you get three extra months for free.
What is Tor, and When Should You Use It?
Tor does almost everything VPN does, dials it up to 11, and then adds a bunch of extra features on top.
Like a VPN, Tor encrypts and routes your traffic to another server before it is sent along to your final destination. However, unlike VPNs, data sent through Tor is always forwarded through multiple servers (called nodes) before it reaches the website you connected to. Critically, those nodes only know about the nodes immediately before and after them, but not any of the other servers in the chain. The complete path is hidden at each step using encryption.
When you’re browsing ONION sites, you actually have six nodes between you and the site you’re connecting to. Browsing the regular web with Tor only nets you three nodes.
The Tor network is designed to be used with a special browser, the Tor Browser, that is configured to increase your security. As an example, it has only two extensions included with it, which decreases how effective browser fingerprinting is. It also forces you to use HTTPS, which ensures that your traffic between the last node in the Tor network and the final destination is encrypted.
Should You Use a VPN with Tor?
Using a VPN with Tor is a mixed bag, and as a general practice, you shouldn’t do it.
There is nothing that prevents you from using Tor with a VPN, but which VPN you use and how you use it matter immensely.
For example, connecting to Tor before connecting to your VPN generally decreases your anonymity, since an additional party (your VPN) is now privy to what you were connecting to and that you were using TOR.
If you stick to encrypted services (anything that uses HTTPS) then you probably won’t get much from using a VPN.
When Should You Use Tor?
Use Tor when anonymity is your single biggest priority. Because there are so many nodes (servers) between you and whatever your final destination is, Tor tends to be much slower than normal browsing and VPNs.
That also means Tor isn’t great if you just need to bypass some regionally locked video—you’re going to be waiting while it buffers. A lot.
If you’re counting on any of these measures to protect you completely from someone monitoring your traffic or trying to figure out who you are, don’t—there is no guarantee they’ll work. They should only be used as tools to augment your privacy and security, not guarantee it.
This article was produced in partnership with NordVPN.
