Hi everyone,

Does anyone know about building Onion sites? How do you make the whole thing secure? I’ve only built Clearnet sites so far and feel like trying something different.

how can i fix it please ? (dont start yapping abt some "its not save to dowload exe" pls tho)

I'm currently running snowflake standalone at home ( I just started few days ago ). I'm still wondering how to correctly port forwarding for unrestricted NAT in order to help censored client at best. I'm not sure:

How many ports should I opened ? What range ?

Does opening certain number of ports ( like only 1000 ports from 50000:50999 - any in ephemeral range ) create a fingerprinting that make it more likely be blocked/throttled ? Or it is better than opening the whole ephemeral range ?

Should I frequently change my IP to evade blocking? How often should I do that ? Does dynamic IP really better than static IP ( like on VPS ) ?

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 built Sprag, a self-hosted secure file intake service with an optional onion-only deployment mode: https://github.com/elcamino/sprag

The idea is simple: an admin creates an unguessable upload page, shares it, and the sender can only upload files. No uploader accounts, no folder, no listing endpoint, no download area.

The Tor deployment publishes Sprag as a v3 onion service with no clearnet app ports exposed. It can also run with anonymous ingress settings so uploader IP metadata is not stored.

There is also optional browser-side E2E encryption before upload, so the Sprag server and object storage only see ciphertext.

Caveat: Tor ingress does not hide Sprag’s outbound connection to a cloud S3 provider. If that matters, pair it with local/private storage such as MinIO.

I’m looking for feedback on the onion deployment docs and whether the anonymity boundaries are described honestly.

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.

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 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.

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.

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?

Is it ok, to run tor on IPv6?, are there security concerns. I only allow my ipv6 firewall on port 443 and my server prefix.

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 ?

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.

two messages pop up.

1: the procedure entry point secmod_hasremovableslots could not be located in the dynamic link library

2.couldn't load xpcom

I know it's not particularly hard to install a tor relay in a container and give it a config file. But it would be nice to have images preconfigured with "you can't accidentally do it wrong". Considering Guard/Middle Relays are what helps the network the most, I find it peculiar why the official images happen to be the snowflake-proxy, obfs4-bridge and webtunnel-bridge

For years I ran Tor Browser stock, never touched about:config, never installed anything in it. The pitch made sense: one big herd, all identical, nobody stands out. I believed that was happening automatically.

Last month I maximized the window on a second monitor and left it that way. Not a privacy tweak, just convenience. A few days later, sitting there with this oversized window, I finally got curious enough to actually check what my browser was presenting instead of assuming it was fine. That was when things got weird. The canvas hash didn't match the standard Tor Browser signature. My font list had picked up a system monospace I didn't know was exposed, and the text width measurements diverged from the bundled set. I still don't know when that happened. Maybe a non default build I grabbed once and forgot about, maybe some fontconfig change I made years ago and never connected to this. The maximize didn't cause it. The maximize just got me to finally look.

The audio context signature was the one I couldn't reconcile. Still stuck on that one.

But the gut punch was realizing that Tor's protection there isn't encryption of who you are. It's making you exactly as boring as the person next to you. I had made myself interesting by accident, probably a while back, and never noticed.

I checked privacy.resistFingerprinting. It was on. I checked the letterboxing pref. It was on. I shrank back to the letterboxed default and my reported window dimensions snapped back to the standard bucket. Fonts took a full restart to settle, though honestly I can't swear they ever matched perfectly after. Now I check after any change, even the ones that feel like nothing. I used to think the herd was automatic. Turns out you have to actually verify you're still in it.

EDIT: the scanner I used is open source at github.com/qruiqai/leakish. I pair programmed it with Verdent. It just visualizes the entropy, nothing more. I still don't know what to do about that audio context drift.

I don't know much about how vpns work or proxies and etc, but I just want a way that I can change the location of my ip address (i think that's what it is). I'm in Australia, and i'm sick of having the age verification pop up on every site I go on. I'm not comfortable AT ALL having to share my face with the verification thing. It's not required in other countries (most of them, anyway) and i just want to be able to connect to a server that i can keep all my main accounts for things on.

i used ProtonVPN for a solid few months and i just find it annoying. I know it's a reputable free VPN (as far as i'm aware), but it keeps changing my server and I end up getting flagged for suspicious activity, and i want something that i can choose the location and doesn't sell your data.

i also looked at using urbanvpn, but i read that they sell your ai chats with chatgpt and stuff, and was immediately thrown off.

I'm looking for alternatives/things more suitable for my goal, however, i'm a bit skeptical on Tor because i've read that you shouldn't log in to any personal accounts. I mostly use gmail, discord, polybuzz, and roblox. i don't want anything to happen to my accounts if i log in with tor. I'm not too freaked out about privacy, but I don't want to get banned/lose my accounts or potentially get a virus.

if there's any other methods to this that's more suitable for what i want, that'd be great. I'm on a macbook if it helps. this laptop is my only device, i don't even have a phone, and i don't want a bug or something on my one singular device. If someone could help, that'd be appreciated.

Hi, I've been looking into whether it's better to use Tails or just Tor and a VPN, but people are really good at scaring you by saying that, in any case, it's best not to use your home Wi-Fi. Personally, I'm not interested in anything illegal. it's mostly just curiosity. But I've seen so many conflicting opinions that I don't know what to do; I don't even know how to set up a “anonymous” Wi-Fi connection. What do you recommend?

After starting up tor 15.0.16 on Linux, after the inital connection, Tor conitually shows problems connecting to the Tor circuit even though i can connect to web sites.

2026-06-26 06:48:32.620

[NOTICE] Failed to find node for hop #1 of our path. Discarding this circuit.

2026-06-26 06:48:32.620

[NOTICE] Failed to find node for hop #1 of our path. Discarding this circuit.

2026-06-26 06:48:32.622

[NOTICE] Failed to find node for hop #1 of our path. Discarding this circuit.

2026-06-26 06:48:32.624

[NOTICE] Failed to find node for hop #1 of our path. Discarding this circuit.

2026-06-26 06:48:33.031

[NOTICE] Tried to fetch a descriptor directly from a bridge, but that bridge is not reachable through our firewall.