TOR stands for, of all things, "The Onion Router." The origin of the term was apparently slang used by the original team, referring to "layers of protection" being added "like the layers of an onion." And, it stuck. Just like a VPN, the technology sits in the internet stack, functioning like a TCP/IP router.

It is a technology originally designed to conceal the fact that an internet exchange is taking place. Just the thing that you might need if you are, say, a spy. Or, if you don't want an eavesdropping competitor to know about negotiations that your business is now conducting with a partner he would recognize. The technology works by scattering packets through multiple communication channels, then reassembling them in the proper order at the far end. (The packets are also encrypted.) The technology was originally created by government, then openly released to the public, where it has been developed since.

TOR is also one way that certain users (perhaps, necessarily ...) employ in an attempt to evade "firewalls" and other barricades that are intended to block communications which they want to pursue. However, it does have some serious problems. The "scattering" effect can cause packets to be lost, and the transmissions – when successful – can be (very ...) slow. And, if you are explicitly watching for it, a TOR exchange can be detected, at least for traffic-analysis purposes.

> if you are explicitly watching for it, a TOR exchange can be detected, at least for traffic-analysis purposes.

If you use tor you will light up like a christmas tree for your ISP. in cases where this is undesirable, you should consider a VPN first, and then using tor.

Qubes-OS is excellent at doing this in a secure fashion and has very good tutorials on how to set this up. If qubes is to ressource hungry for you, you can consider whonix (which is actually what qubes uses).

Maybe there is a decentralized, serverless, uncensorable file sharing platform out there like the speech platform with Bastyon?
https://www.brighteon.com/ee249686-c...f-d0783a5722c9

Strictly speaking, TOR and VPN are distinct technologies. Although both of them integrate with the system's network-stack in similar ways (as a router).

VPN exists to create – as the name implies – a "virtual private network" on top of an insecure public network such as the Internet. It is obvious to any eavesdropper that a VPN is communicating, but the traffic is unintelligible. When properly used with "unique digital certificates," the VPN can provide assurances that you – and every relay component of the total network – actually are in all cases talking to the parties that you think you are, and that the messages are being "delivered as tendered."

TOR seeks to conceal the fact that communication is taking place at all.

Also: VPN can be used in two common but very different ways. One is "within a corporation," where it allows "the Internet" to be safely used to transfer traffic between buildings, subsidiaries, traveling "road warriors," home-based workers, maybe business partners and customers, and so on. Functionally speaking, the traffic never leaves "the company's internal private network," even though part of it is transported publicly from place to place, and the corporation creates and manages all of it.

The other one uses "public subscription services," where you pay to communicate securely with an endpoint that eventually dumps your traffic – now unencrypted – back onto the public internet. (The point being that it does so "somewhere else.")

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