Tor Integration

Tor (The Onion Router) provides an additional layer of anonymity by routing your traffic through multiple encrypted relays worldwide. When enabled, your connection passes through at least three independent nodes before reaching its destination, making traffic analysis extremely difficult.

When to Use Tor

Tor is designed for situations requiring maximum anonymity rather than everyday browsing:

Sensitive research. Journalists, activists, and researchers investigating sensitive topics use Tor to prevent attribution.

Hostile network environments. When you need to access information from locations with heavy surveillance.

Anonymous communication. Tor enables access to onion services (.onion addresses) that exist only within the Tor network.

For typical privacy needs like hiding your activity from ISPs or protecting on public Wi-Fi, VPN alone is sufficient and much faster.

How Tor Works

When you enable Tor in Stealth, your traffic is encrypted in multiple layers (hence "onion routing"):

1. Entry node - Sees your IP but not your destination or content
2. Middle relay - Sees only encrypted traffic passing through
3. Exit node - Sees your destination but not your real IP

No single node knows both who you are and what you're accessing. Combined with Stealth's VPN, even the entry node doesn't see your real IP. It sees the VPN server's address instead.

Enabling Tor

1. Open Settings → Security
2. Toggle Tor Routing to On
3. Wait for the Tor circuit to establish (may take 15-30 seconds)
4. Status indicator turns orange when connected

With Tor active, all your internet traffic is routed through the Tor network. This applies system-wide, not just to your browser.

Performance Expectations

Tor significantly impacts browsing speed. Traffic passes through three volunteer-run relays around the world, each adding latency:

This slowdown is inherent to Tor's design. The multiple relay hops and encryption layers that provide anonymity also limit speed.

Limitations

Understand what Tor does and doesn't protect:

Tor hides your identity from destinations. Websites see traffic coming from a Tor exit node, not your IP address.

Tor doesn't make you invisible. Your ISP (or VPN provider) knows you're using Tor. The traffic pattern is distinctive.

Tor doesn't encrypt all traffic. Final connections to non-HTTPS sites exit unencrypted. Always use HTTPS.

Tor doesn't protect against browser fingerprinting. Your browser's unique characteristics can still identify you. For maximum anonymity, use Tor Browser rather than regular browsers with Tor routing.

Best Practices

Enable VPN before Tor. This hides Tor usage from your ISP and provides an extra layer if Tor is compromised.

Don't login to personal accounts. Logging into accounts linked to your identity defeats anonymity.

Use HTTPS everywhere. Tor exit nodes can see unencrypted traffic. HTTPS ensures end-to-end encryption.

Disable when not needed. Keep Tor off for normal browsing to maintain usable speeds. Enable only when anonymity is required.

Troubleshooting

If Tor fails to connect:

1. Wait longer - initial circuit creation can take up to a minute
2. Try disconnecting and reconnecting
3. Check that VPN is connected (if using VPN+Tor)
4. Some networks block Tor - try a different network
5. Restart Stealth and try again

If websites block Tor exit nodes (common for some services), disable Tor and use VPN alone for those sites.