r/TOR

I have been running a snowflake proxy on my homelab server for the last few years and also informed my parents (we live in the same house). Today my mother tells me that she talked to ChatGPT about what I have been doing and now she is scared of the Russian secret service raiding our house (in Germany BTW). I tried to explain to her how unrealistic that is and how snowflake is built and that what I have been doing is very important in the fight for a censorship free internet but she tells me that she won't understand it anyways and sais that she wants it to be gone because she is scared. I am really sad now that I probably have to say goodbye to my snowflake proxy with its beautiful grafana dashboard. What can I do to keep on fighting censorship?

As the title says I forgot my usual browser open logged in to my amazon account and connected to Tor browsing the clearnet.

Does this pose any risks to my security ?

I know Tor was created by the Navy and is keep running by non profit volunteers. I assume the browsing the dark web is not illegal but making purchases is illegal. Hence why Torproject still exists?

Who are these "volunteers" keeping Tor running, and most likely there are always new individuals? Then there are "nodes" and the list goes on. It can get confusing for someone like me, who knows the basic. Maybe someone can help clarify things? Thanks

I have setup a middle/guard relay on my home network, Rogers Xfinity unmetered plan. (previously Ignite) Has anyone else done this? What issues am i likely to encounter? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Is it worth to use VPN with TOR? how about if i am using tails os? how can you even connect when tails itself doesn't by default let you?

I heard that the .onion services does not use exit node.Is that true? If yes then how do i enter the website? Where does the traffic go?

I always knew how to get on the darkweb, but i always stopped myself from going on it out of fear. A few days ago i decided to go onto the darkweb just to see how it is. I was watching a documentary about the darkweb and the many people that were arrested on it, i think this lowkey made me expect to find crazy individuals who are wealthy and powerful, whistleblowers and crypto whales. I think I was just curious as to what drives such people and how did they end up how they did, are they smart? how educated are they etc...Basically i was curious about their mentality.

Went on ahmia and browsed around.

Bruh, the darkweb was full of low time scammers and normal people. The hackers are decent tho. But everything else....

Many badly designed stores, some stores are so badly designed it is clear they are scams.

browsed alittle and found it pretty chilled.

why do these youtubers make it seem like such a crazy place? is it too early for me to make this conclusion, Is it really as bad as people say?

As someone who dabbles in a lil datahoarding here and there, YouTube hates my IP. Regularly can't download more than 3-5 YouTube videos with yt-dlp, semi-regularly Freetube also won't work for an hour or two. I'd like to fix this without paying for a whole VPN.

Found this, and copied the section about configuring your /etc/tor/torrc file to be better for yt-dlp & Freetube. Got to the step where he says to run TOR in browser, and got this:

Jul 02 10:28:21.452 [notice] Tor 0.4.9.11 running on Linux with Libevent 2.1.12-stable, OpenSSL 3.6.3, Zlib 1.3.2, Liblzma 5.8.3, Libzstd 1.5.7 and Glibc 2.43 as libc.
Jul 02 10:28:21.452 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://support.torproject.org/faq/staying-anonymous/
Jul 02 10:28:21.452 [notice] Read configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc".
Jul 02 10:28:21.456 [warn] The abbreviation 'SchedulerHighWaterMark' is deprecated. Please use 'SchedulerHighWaterMark__' instead
Jul 02 10:28:21.456 [warn] Skipping obsolete configuration option "SchedulerHighWaterMark__".
Jul 02 10:28:21.456 [warn] The abbreviation 'SchedulerLowWaterMark' is deprecated. Please use 'SchedulerLowWaterMark__' instead
Jul 02 10:28:21.456 [warn] Skipping obsolete configuration option "SchedulerLowWaterMark__".
Jul 02 10:28:21.462 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
Jul 02 10:28:21.463 [notice] Opened Socks listener connection (ready) on 127.0.0.1:9050
Jul 02 10:28:21.463 [warn] Error setting groups to gid 43: "Operation not permitted".
Jul 02 10:28:21.463 [warn] If you set the "User" option, you must start Tor as root.
Jul 02 10:28:21.463 [notice] Closing partially-constructed Socks listener connection (ready) on 127.0.0.1:9050
Jul 02 10:28:21.464 [warn] Failed to parse/validate config: Problem with User value. See logs for details.
Jul 02 10:28:21.464 [err] Reading config failed--see warnings above.

The "add underscores to the places we told you to" bit is very straightforward, but the issues with setting groups and "User" options... I'd appreciate some guidance on that. And/or general advice as far as all this goes.

I use TOR. It works fine. Launches fine. Browses fine. I try to download something (that isn't even big!). All tabs crash and close immediately.

Is there something wrong I'm doing? Is it just the fault of my computer? (I use Lubuntu as an OS, and my computer is from 2012. But when using my usual firefox, gigabytes big files download smooth and fast!)(Also, I install UBlock as an extension every time I install TOR, too, if it matters.)

I've tried reinstalling, but it's still the same thing.

Hey, I'm looking for what would be the most anonymous network between all of these ON THE PAPER.

Like maybe TOR has more users which makes it more anonymous than another one, but if this other one had as many users, would it be better, and if so, which one would be the best?
sorry if my english is bad.

No problems reported on https://torprojectstatus.org but for me

https://onionoo.torproject.org/details?search=theking2

times out even with a vpn

i know i gotta use tor and some onion sites but idk anything in specific and without knowing it it might be dangerous so i wanna know how to get on darkweb and especially what is darkweb like i read smtg like its just a part of web but that part where ill*gal things are going on and it cannot be expored with normal browser so i wanna know as muh as i know also on how to not get fked up there so anyone?(just tell me how to do it not thatt dont do it)

i use tor to watch fighting events by accessing a website that doesn't allow 3rd world countries.
sometimes i get popup ads and i notice that they are in my local language but when i check the tor circuit to see my lcoation , it shows random countries that aren't related to mine.
how am i getting personalised ads ?

Hi, I use Tor Browser with VPN and the security settings are set to the most secure.

I was recently playing a multiplayer game and a votekick was launched against me. People were writing in the chat something like "he watched child corn - i found his name on the internet" (If I were watched CP, I wouldn't put my name anywhere.). And I was votekicked for this reason.

It's also possible that my friend signed up somewhere under my name, because I recently showed him (at his request) how to get into the Tor browser and how to access to the dark web.

I don't feel safe using tor browser. Do you think it's just a joke, or was there some kind of data leak?

English is not my native language.

The question in the title, would you use public Wi-Fi connection such as library, Starbucks, gym ect. to access Tor? I'm still learning as I go.