image transcription:
a YouTube screenshot of a community post, which is a meme regarding incognito mode. it has two panels with an animated figure(person) and chrome logo (chrome) with limbs. in first panel, chrome is asking “which website would you line to see?”, to which the person replies " I don’t want you to know. " in second panel, chrome has become a ventriloquist, holding a masked muppet with sunglasses and a fedora(symbol for incognito on chrome). it is asking the person “what about telling Mr. incognito?”, to which the person joyfully replies “okay.”

the screenshot has a main comment with several replies. the main comment(by Paula_Amato) reads, “And then there’s Tor browser e CD Catching my brother Scrolling through Tor was the second worst secret I know about him… The first is the website he was using.”

replies to the comment:

[30 Pranay Pawar • 1 day ago] May God bless and have mercy on the bro’s life. I would knock myself out for eternity if anybody i know found that out too.
[FArid ch. • 1 day ago] what onion website your brother access… out of curiosity
[Griffin McKenzie • 1 day ago (edited)] Tor is literally just a browser like any other but better.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
      742·
      1 year ago

      It’s a heavily modified firefox browser designed to work with something called “the onion network”. It’s called this because there are several nodes on the network designed to obfuscate your Internet traffic by wrapping a layer on your Internet traffic, creating an “onion”. All of these layers mean that each node only knows what the previous and next nodes are. The most vulnerable nodes are the starting and exit nodes, because they can identify you and potentially trace back your IP. You also can’t choose your starting or exit nodes. It’s well known that the US federal government controls some of these exit nodes.

      • papalonian@lemmy.world
        15·
        1 year ago

        I still know incredibly little about the Tor browser and how it works, but I appreciate your response!

        I guess I don’t understand what the difference is between using the Tor browser and just using a VPN. I’ve also got very little idea what a “node” is so that’s probably my issue haha.

        • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Thanks for asking this follow-up question - until I read your comment, I hadn’t realised that this is sort of my confusion about Tor too

        • force@lemmy.world
          0·
          1 year ago

          Using a VPN makes your traffic travel through the VPN server to get encrypted before reaching the destination.

          Using Tor basically does this 3 times, but it’s decentralized so it goes through multiple different random relays before reaching the destination. And it changes which relays you’re using every 10 minutes.

          When using a VPN you’re basically relying on your VPN service giving it their all when it comes to protecting your privacy, and also on them not bending over to the government if it wants to monitor you. Which you won’t get with a lot of VPNs (especially not free VPNs).

          Since Tor is decentralized and changes your connections frequently, it’s virtually impossible to monitor someone using Tor. The chance that all 3 relays your traffic travels through are controlled by people coordinating to get you are slim in the first place, without even considering the relays changing.

          You can also use both Tor and a VPN at once, but to do so properly is a lot more convoluted than just turning on your VPN and using Tor at the same time.

          • Flumsy@feddit.de
            0·
            1 year ago

            TOR and VPN at once is just dumb and probably less secure than just using TOR.

        • Imacat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          3·
          1 year ago

          When you use a vpn, any traffic that would go between you and a website goes through the vpn first. Makes it hard for sites to know who you are and makes it hard for your isp to know what sites you visit.

          When you use tor, any traffic that would go between you and a website is bounced around between a few different computers first. Similar to a vpn but is near impossible to track unless you’re a big gov agency with lots of resources.

          • Nightwatch Admin@feddit.nl
            6·
            1 year ago

            There’s one thing missing from your reply: the vpn provider knows who you are and what you are doing, so it’s not better than an isp - just a trust tradeoff.