Choosing the right pluggable transport

Role of Tor Browser

Tor is generally used to access websites that are blocked or censored in some countries. Tor is designed in such a way that its users can bypass these restrictions and access the blocked websites freely without the knowledge of their ISPs or their government. Tor grants access to the Dark Web, a part of the internet not indexed by common search engines, because many illegal activities occur in that part due to the anonymity it provides. Some legitimate and privacy-focused websites exist on the Dark Web that are used by ethical groups. Many people use it for legitimate purposes, such as protecting their privacy, conducting research, or accessing services safely in countries with restrictive internet policies....

How Tor browser ensures user privacy and security

Tor operates by rerouting the user’s internet traffic through an array of volunteer-operated servers (nodes), with each node sealing and adding one layer of encryption to hide the user’s IP address. This makes it very difficult for anyone to trace the online activity back to the user. Even the ISPs and the government have a tough time finding the IP address. Hence, the term originates from ‘Onion Routing‘. In the process of encryption, there are 3 nodes (onion skins) through which the traffic passes:...

What is circumvention

Circumvention is the process of bypassing the restrictions imposed by the internet provider or the regional government using some tools that are provided by the browser itself. These tools are also known as “pluggable transports“. According to the official website of Tor Browser, there are currently three stable operating systems, while more are under development. Once the transport setup is completed, you can browse freely without any restrictions....

Types of pluggable transports :

obsf4: obfs4 reroutes the traffic and fashions it such that it looks random, preventing the network monitors from finding bridges by scanning through the internet connection. Obfs4 bridges are more secure than their predecessors. Meek: It routes Tor traffic through a series of web servers, making it appear as ordinary web traffic. It disguises Tor traffic as connections to popular, unblocked websites. It grants a form of obfuscation for Tor traffic, hence making it difficult for censors to differentiate between Tor traffic and regular web traffic. Snowflake: It allows proxies to run web servers that allow users in regions with network restrictions to connect to the Tor network. They act as intermediaries, hesitating users to connect to the Tor network even when access to the regular Tor network is blocked. It routes the traffic through WebRTC....

Choosing the right pluggable transport

All three transports listed in Tor Bridge’s menu work in different ways and have widely different methods of communicating with the network. It all depends on your use case and what parameters you prefer....

Using the pluggable transports

Follow the below steps to setup a pluggable transport in the Tor browser:...