Published on 2025-04-25
An Onion for Repro Uncensored
When digital surveillance threatens reproductive freedom, privacy and anonymity are the last line of defense. That's why Repro Uncensored and the Tor Project teamed up to launch a censorship-resistant .onion site---ensuring access to reproductive health information and protecting bodily autonomy in the digital age without fear of criminalization.
"At Repro Uncensored, we receive reports every day from organizations and individuals who run into barriers trying to access or share reproductive health information. It can come with serious risks - especially for people in hostile legal environments. We partnered with Tor because we trust its long-standing commitment to privacy and resistance to censorship. Tor allows us to keep information available for those who need it most, without exposing them to surveillance and risk of criminalization. I think of Repro Uncensored as both a shield and a space to experiment - a place where we can test censorship-resistant infrastructure and privacy-preserving practices that can be adapted by other organizations and movements navigating similar threats."
- Martha Dimitratou, Co-Founder and Digital Director, Repro Uncensored
Read the full story to learn more about this partnership here: https://www.reprouncensored.org/research/onion
Tor User Support Now Available in Farsi
We're excited to announce that Farsi-speaking users can now get direct support from the Tor Project! Whether you're trying to access Tor in a region where it's blocked or need help troubleshooting a connection, our team is here to assist---now in Farsi.
This is part of our commitment to meeting users where they are and breaking down language barriers to digital freedom. Support is provided via text on Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, and email---Monday through Thursday, from 19:30 to 01:30 Iran time.
Learn how to get support and stay safe online: http://torproject.org/user-support-farsi
WebTunnel Celebrates One Year of Combating Cyber Censorship
On World Day Against Cyber Censorship, we were proud to celebrate WebTunnel's first anniversary with the conclusion of our recent community campaign. The Tor community came together and successfully deployed 207 new WebTunnel bridges---exceeding our goal---and bringing our total from 60 to over 300 bridges. We're incredibly grateful to all our volunteers and supporters who made this campaign successful. Your feedback, bug fixes, and documentation improvements have been invaluable.
WebTunnel has proven especially effective in heavily censored regions like China, Iran, and Russia, often outperforming other methods in reliability and speed.
Join our fight against internet censorship: run a WebTunnel bridge, use Snowflake in your browser, or help test Tor tools by becoming an alpha tester. Tor's community-driven model is one of the remaining strongholds against increasing online censorship and surveillance.
Keeping up with the latest releases
Tor Browser 14.5: Connection Assist Comes to Android
Tor Browser 14.5 is now available for download with exciting new features to help more users access the free and open internet.
- After years of development, Connection Assist has finally arrived on Android! This anti-censorship feature automatically finds and tests bridges for you when Tor is blocked, simplifying the connection process with just a single tap.
- We've also expanded language support to include Belarusian, Bulgarian, and Portuguese (Portugal) across all platforms, making our privacy tools accessible to millions more users in their native languages.
- Behind the scenes, this release marks a significant technical milestone with a refactored shared backend between desktop and mobile, bringing improved stability and laying groundwork for future enhancements.
Read the full blog post to learn more about these features and how they're helping users worldwide: https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-145/
Upcoming Events
PDAF 2025 -- May 20--21, 2025
7amleh -- The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media announced the launch of the official agenda for the ninth edition of the Palestine Digital Activism Forum 2025 (PDAF). The event will explore how we can rebuild digital infrastructure and resist digital repression. Learn how to combat disinformation, protect privacy, and support education in warzones. Isabela Fernandes, Executive Director of the Tor Project, will moderate the panel The Right to Know: Access to Information in Times of Crises.
Be part of the conversation. Register now: www.pdaf.net
Keep in touch
If you don't already follow us on Bluesky, please do so: https://bsky.app/profile/torproject.org.
For support and exchange with our community, the Tor Forum is the best place to be. And the Tor Blog and newsletter are still the most reliable source of Tor news. So, please encourage others to join our mailing list by sharing this email.
Published on 2025-03-03
We met our match
The results of the 2024 year-end fundraising campaign are in, and you did it, Tor community! You have successfully met and exceeded the 2024 year-end fundraising goal, raising $816,141.70 with the support of Power Up Privacy's [1] $300,000 matching challenge. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed to the campaign in one way or another. This strengthens the Tor Project's financial stability, ensuring the continued development of privacy-preserving tools like the Tor network, Tor Browser, Tails, and Snowflake.
In 2025, Tor will focus on improving user experience, expanding integrations, supporting relay operators and digital security trainers, and advancing internet freedom in our commitment to defending Human Rights worldwide: https://blog.torproject.org/celebrating-2024-yec/
[1] https://powerupprivacy.com/
A new coat for Snowflake
Extending a lifeline to blocked internet users can be as simple as opening another browser tab--with Snowflake. To match the straightforward usability of one of Tor's most successful anti-censorship tools, we've given the Snowflake website a much-needed refresh to make it clearer, more accessible, and easier to navigate. The revamp was supported by the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) mentorship program.
Read our interview with mentee Ashish Soni and check out Tor's projects for GSoC 2025: https://blog.torproject.org/snowflake-refresh-to-help-more-people-get-online/
Interested contributors will be able to apply to GSoC from March 24th to April 8th: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/02/meet-mentoring-organizations-of-gsoc.html
[2] https://snowflake.torproject.org/
Keeping up with the latest releases
New release: Rdsys 1.0
After years of development, we are officially releasing Rdsys 1.0. Although Rdsys has already been the sole mechanism for distributing bridges since it replaced BridgeDB last October, this version 1.0 milestone officially marks its new status. We now consider Rdsys stable, but our work is far from finished. We are committed to improving Rdsys and fixing issues as they arise, and to adapting quickly to censors' evolving tactics.   
Access the full changelog here: https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-rdsys-1-0/
- New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 14.5a3, February 11, 2025
- Arti 1.4.0 is released: onion services, RPC, relay development, and more, February 7, 2025
- New Release: Tor Browser 14.0.6, February 7, 2025
- New Release: Tails 6.12, February 6, 2025
Upcoming events
FOSSASIA Summit 2025, March 13, 2025 -- March 15, 2025
The FOSSASIA Summit brings together a global community of developers, innovators, enterprises, and educators. The 2025 edition, set to take place in Bangkok, will be a 3-day hybrid event offering both in-person and online experiences.
Roger Dingledine, Co-Founder of The Tor Project, will speak at the event and host an AMA session.
Talk: Tor: privacy for everyone
AMA: Insights from the Tor Project
Cloudfest, March 17, 2025 -- March 20, 2025
Connect with the largest community of internet infrastructure service providers in the world! Over 8,700 technology leaders will be waiting for you at Europa-Park in Rust, Germany!
Roger Dingledine, Co-Founder of The Tor Project, will deliver a keynote address.
In the meantime, if you want to hear from Roger virtually, check out his interview during last week's RightsCon on the "This Week in Cyberspace" podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0TXIWIvSPtvYRlVlJ10tAV?si=4t-M8v1GQAiEgtuOhQD-hA
Keep in touch
Earlier this year, Tor's X (Twitter) account got compromised. This has rightfully sparked larger debates about our future on that platform and how we want to continue to engage with folks on social. We have decided to focus more of our attention on other platforms. If you don't already follow us on Bluesky, please do so:
https://bsky.app/profile/torproject.org.
For support and exchange with our community, the Tor Forum is the best place to be. And the Tor Blog and newsletter are still the most reliable source of Tor news. So, please encourage others to join our mailing list by sharing this email.
Published on 2024-12-05
Tackling abuse complaints, defending the Tor network
At the end of October, the Tor Project and relay operators received abuse complaints regarding alleged port scanning activity from their servers. Thanks to a collaborative effort, the source of the spoofed packets has been identified and shut down. While the attack had a limited impact on the Tor network - taking a few relays offline temporarily - it caused unnecessary stress and inconvenience for many relay operators who had to address these complaints. We want to acknowledge the effect this had on operators, and express our gratitude for their resilience, ability to troubleshoot, collaborate, and continue to support Tor's response to this issue.
https://blog.torproject.org/defending-tor-mitigating-IP-spoofing/
Making new connections: from BridgeDB to Rdsys
Meanwhile, we were excited to fully transition Tor's bridge distribution to Rdsys, replacing BridgeDB. Unlike its predecessor, Rdsys is built as a modular system, dividing responsibilities into separate components--such as distribution logic and communication methods (e.g., email, Telegram)--that work together seamlessly. This architecture lets us experiment with new anti-censorship tools, different distribution channels, and mechanisms to more easily adapt to emerging threats without overhauling the entire system. The best part: it allowed us to get rid of pesky captchas.
Find out more about the benefits of Rdsys and the lessons learned from over 15 years of anti-censorship work.
https://blog.torproject.org/making-connections-from-bridgedb-to-rdsys/
Calling all bridge operators--and those aspiring to be!
As the Russian government intensifies its grip on the internet, Tor's censorship circumvention tools are more critical than ever. This latest wave includes attempts to block Tor bridges and pluggable transports developed by the Tor Project, removal of other circumvention apps from stores, and targeting popular hosting providers, shrinking the space for bypassing censorship.
Thankfully, Tor's new bridge type, Webtunnel, is particularly effective at evading these kinds of attacks. Its design blends itself into other web traffic, allowing a user to hide in plain sight. Since its launch in March of 2024, we've prioritized small download sizes for more convenient distribution. We've also simplified support of uTLS integration, further mimicking the characteristics of widespread browsers.
Our goal is to deploy 200 new WebTunnel bridges by the end of this December to open secure access for Internet users.
If you've ever thought about running a Tor bridge, now is the time! Learn more about how to run WebTunnel bridges here: https://blog.torproject.org/call-for-webtunnel-bridges/
But there are other ways to...
Get involved
When you support Tor, you support folks like Singh, a woman living in the UK who values her privacy and uses Tor Browser to control her online identity. Singh is not a tech expert, but she understands the importance of protecting her personal data in today's digital world. Using Tor Browser allows her to browse the web without leaving a trail for her Internet Service Provider (ISP) or advertisers to follow. Singh relies on Tor to avoid mass surveillance, giving her peace of mind and control over who has access to her online activity.
If you're anything like Singh, and you understand the importance of privacy without getting into the minutiae of setting up your own operating system or writing code, you can support folks like her with a donation of as little as $2.00 USD.
If everyone in our community gave $2.00, we would hit our goal in a few hours. https://blog.torproject.org/freedom-to-browse/
Keeping up with the latest releases
Arti now has a built-in safeguard to control how much memory it uses. This matters to folks running an Onion Service. The feature gives you better control and protection for your system while also reducing the chances of your service being used in deanonymization attacks. It's also an important milestone as we are working on improving the mobile experience of Tor. Learn all about it here: https://blog.torproject.org/arti_1_3_0_memquota/
Arti 1.3.1 is released: onion services, RPC, relay development, and more -- December 3, 2024
New Release: Tails 6.10 -- November 28, 2024
New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 14.5a1 -- November 26, 2024
New Release: Tor Browser 14.0.3 -- November 26, 2024
Upcoming events
December 7, 2024 - Tor relay operator meetup
Our next online meetup is happening on Saturday, December 7th, 2024 at 1900 UTC
We're happy to announce that we'll have a special guest, Ben Collier, joining us to discuss his new book: "Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy" 8 (2024).
For details on the agenda and how to join the meeting, please visit our forum: https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-next-tor-relay-operator-meetup-december-7th-2024-1900-utc/16043.
December 9, 2024 -- December 11, 2024 -- SplinterCon
Join us in Berlin on December 9-11, as we partner with the German Council on Foreign Relations to bring together a global network of innovators ready to challenge the increasing fragmentation of our digital society. We invite participants from around the world to contribute their knowledge, experience and skill to counter the growing trend of digital isolation, where national boundaries and corporate platforms restrict open communication.
The thematic focus of SplinterCon is on decentralized protocols and technologies, wireless connectivity solutions and innovative approaches to bypassing censorship systems.
Members of the Tor Project's Anti-censorship team will be in attendance: https://splintercon.net/berlin/
December 27, 2024 -- December 30, 2024 -- 38c3 (The 38th Chaos Communication Congress)
The 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3) takes place in Hamburg on 27--30 Dec 2024, and is the 2024 edition of the annual four-day conference on technology, society and utopia organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and volunteers.
Congress offers lectures and workshops and various events on a multitude of topics including (but not limited to) information technology and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society.
Members of the Tor Project's Network, Network Health and Anti-censorship teams will be in attendance and speaking at the event: https://events.ccc.de/en/category/38c3/
Published on 2024-10-28
All donations to the Tor Project matched 1:1, now through Dec 31
Each year, the Tor Project holds a fundraiser during which we ask for financial support. Donations make it possible for the Tor Project to build tools powered by people---not profit. Now is a great time to give and spread the word about the Tor Project because through the end of the year, all donations will be matched by our supporters at Power Up Privacy.
That means when you donate $25, you're making a $50 impact. Plus, we've introduced a brand-new item to our list of gifts you can receive in return for making a donation. đź‘€
New Release: Tor Browser 14.0
Tor Browser 14.0 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and our distribution directory. The new release features a new 'New Circuit' option for Android, designed, to refresh your connection and legacy platforms support until March 2025.
This is our first stable release based on Firefox ESR 128, incorporating a year's worth of changes shipped upstream in Firefox. As part of this process we've also completed our annual ESR transition audit, where we reviewed and addressed over 200 Bugzilla issues for changes in Firefox that may negatively affect the privacy and security of Tor Browser users. Our final reports from this audit are now available in the tor-browser-spec repository on our Gitlab instance.
Upcoming events
State of the Onion 2024, November 2024
The State of the Onion is the Tor Project's annual virtual event from the Tor Project and the Tor community where we share updates about what have been working on. đź“ş Stream live on our YouTube channel
- November 13 will focus on the Tor Project and the organization's work.
- November 20 will focus on organizations in the Tor community and their work.
Devcon 2024, November 12, 2024 -- November 15, 2024
Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, thinkers, and makers. Devcon's mission is to bring decentralized protocols, tools, and culture to the people and make Ethereum more accessible around the world.
Roger Dingledine (Co-founder of the Tor Project) is a featured speaker at the event: "Discussing lessons from the Tor community and privacy-by-design."
No cON Name 2024 -- November 18, 2024
No cON Name is the oldest active hacking and IT security conference in Spain. Established in 1999, the first edition took place in Mallorca, and the event now continues in Barcelona. We are a non-profit association. Our events are open to anyone eager to share knowledge and engage with our vision of Hacking and IT Security (aka Cybersecurity).
meskio from Tor'S Anti-censorship Team will be attending and speaking at the event.
Human Rights Day, December 10, 2024
Every year on December 10, we celebrate the UN's adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. The UDHR outlines privacy as one of the human rights everyone should be free to exercise.
đź“Ž Keep an eye on the blog and newsletter for event updates.
Event replay
Distribute(d) Trust -- The key to global encryption access
For many vulnerable Internet users, the Tor network is the only way to gain access to encrypted services. It's made possible by relay operators, the thousands of volunteers who donate their time, technical expertise, and hardware.
For a deeper look at the motivations and challenges of this community, we spoke with two researchers, Ana Custura and Victoria Neumann, who shared findings from their recent study on the Relay Operator Community Health. And Gus, Tor's Community Team lead, hosted a roundtable discussion with individual and institutional relay operators to learn more about the ins and outs of powering a safer, more equitable internet.
The virtual live event was part of Tor's contributions to Global Encryption Day. đź“ş Watch the event replay on YouTube
Keeping up with the latest releases
Published on 2024-08-01
Latest updates
New major release: Tor Browser 13.5
Tor Browser 13.5 is here bringing some major updates for Android and Desktop: from a revamped connection experience and a permanent home for Tor logs to improved bridge settings and a letterboxing redesign. Below are some of the highlights, and for more information, check out the official announcement on the Tor blog: https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-135/
What's new for Android?
New connection experience: While we await Connection Assist's arrival, we've completely overhauled Tor Browser for Android's connection screens with a new, "native" implementation, making it consistent with the desktop counterpart and its censorship circumvention experience.
A permanent home for Tor logs: Tor logs help us troubleshoot issues when they occur. We've now made it easier to share them with us: You can now easily find and copy Tor logs in the new “Connection Settings” section regardless of the connection status. We've also implemented a handy button you can use to copy all logs without needing to manually select text.
What's new for Desktop?
"Betterboxing": We've polished letterbox to improve the UX of Tor Browser's fingerprinting protections. Find a letterboxing section in General Settings with options to remember window size and adjust alignment.
Improved bridge settings: 13.5 comes with redesigned bridge cards, easier bridge sharing, and a new section to find or request more bridges–allowing users to retrieve bridges without needing to connect to Tor first.
Simplified onion site errors: For the last few years onion site errors have appeared different from other types of network errors in Tor Browser. We've now implemented a consistent design with other network errors to avoid confusion and create a smoother browsing experience when you encounter issues in the onionverse.
Vanguard support for Arti
We've recently announced that Arti now supports Vanguards as of version 1.2.2. This is an exciting step for Arti that gets us another step closer to bringing onion services on Arti into parity with the C tor implementation.
Why Vanguards? Guard discovery attacks can expose your guard relays, making traffic analysis easier and potentially leading to de-anonymization. First introduced in 2018 as an add-on to v3 onion services, Vanguards add an extra layer of defense by selecting specific relays for second and third hops, significantly increasing the cost for attackers.
Who is this for? If you're using Arti to connect to onion services or running an Arti onion service, this update is for you! Especially useful for long-running services. Vanguards are enabled by default in Arti 1.2.2 and later. Ensure you're running version 1.2.5 or newer for the best security.
Find out more in the release notes: https://blog.torproject.org/announcing-vanguards-for-arti/
Upcoming events
August 8-11, 2024: Tor @ DEF CON 32
Join us at DEF CON 32 – come by our booth, check out new Tor merch, and listen to our talk "Measuring the Tor network" on Saturday, August 10th at 3.00pm. Silvia Puglisi (Tor Project Network Health Lead) and Roger Dingledine (Tor Project Co-Founder and Original Developer) will discuss how Tor maintains a healthy network and community, detects and mitigates attacks–all with the help of metrics and usage patterns. For more info, visit: https://defcon.org/html/defcon-32/dc-32-speakers.html
August 16-18, 2024: 33rd Usenix Security Symposium
We've curated a list of papers we are especially excited about, including "Snowflake, a censorship circumvention system using temporary WebRTC proxies" by Cecylia Bocovich, Tor Project; Arlo Breault, Wikimedia Foundation; David Fifield and Serene, unaffiliated; Xiaokang Wang, Tor Project.
For the full list visit: blog.torproject.org/event/usenix-security-2024
August 21-23, 2024: Open Source Summit Hong Kong
https://blog.torproject.org/event/Open-Source-Summit-Hong-Kong/
Keeping up with the latest releases
July 10, 2024
New Release Tor Browser 13.5.1
June 11, 2024
New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.5a9
Ways to contribute
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-tn3-2023
Published on 2024-05-20
Latest updates
Tor migrates from Gitolite/GitWeb to GitLab
Attention all Tor contributors: We have migrated to a self-hosted GitLab server.
Despite initial security concerns, the community adopted GitLab resulting in the migration being largely a formality acknowledging the existing situation. Some critical repositories like Puppet were moved to dedicated servers, with GitLab serving as a mirror.
Learn more about how to update your Git config in our blog post: http://blog.torproject.org/gitolite-gitlab-migration/
Code audit for censorship circumvention tools completed by Cure53
From 2021 to present, the Tor Project has worked on the "Rapid Expansion of Access to the Uncensored Internet through Tor in China, Hong Kong, & Tibet" initiative, aiming to enhance Tor usage in the China region. The results included the releases of WebTunnel, Lox, RDSys, and Connection Assist, updating Open Source Circumvention Applications, and increasing adoption via regional localization and user engagement.
To ensure software reliability, the Tor Project engaged Cure53 for a comprehensive security audit in January 2024. As a result, all identified vulnerabilities stemming from recent modifications were successfully addressed.
To explore all audit results, you can download the full report here: https://blog.torproject.org/code-audit-censorship-circumvention-tools/
And learn more about Webtunnel in our announcement: https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-webtunnel-evading-censorship-by-hiding-in-plain-sight/
Surveillance as a Service: The Global Impact of Israeli "Defense" Technologies on Privacy and Human Rights
Highlighting, exposing, and actively working against the proliferation and normalization of surveillance technology is crucial in protecting human rights worldwide.
At the Tor Project, we know that it is through collective awareness and action that we can all build and contribute to privacy-preserving technologies that aim to protect people everywhere from the prevalence of surveillance and oppression. It is equally important to hold companies accountable and recognize the source and enablers of surveillance tech, especially now as we see these technologies being aggressively utilized in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This post delves into the impact of Israeli surveillance technologies in Palestine, illustrating how localized instances of its use can have extensive repercussions that pave the way for the widespread acceptance and global adoption of such oppressive practices: https://blog.torproject.org/surveillance-as-a-service-global-impact-of-israeli-defense-technologies-on-privacy-human-rights/
Upcoming events
May 25th, 2024
Join us for the Tor Community Day 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal
The Tor Project is happy to announce that we are hosting the Tor Community Day 2024 on May 25th in Lisbon, Portugal! The Community Day is a great opportunity for Tor Core Contributors, Tor Community Members, and other interested folks to come together, connect and discuss all things Tor. The Tor Community Day is free and open to the public. Anyone who wishes to join is welcome without any prior need to sign up. If you're in the area and curious about Tor, stop by!
June 4, 2024 - June 5, 2024
PDAF - Palestine Digital Activism Forum 2024
Members of the Tor Project will host a panel "Regulation & Legislation: Reigning in AI for Human Rights." Virtual attendance registration: https://pdaf.net
July 12, 2024 - July 14, 2024
HOPE XV
July 15, 2024 - July 20, 2024
24th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS)
Keeping up with the latest releases
May 15, 2024
Security release: Arti 1.2.3. (Please upgrade.)
May 14, 2024
New Release: Tor Browser 13.0.15
April 30, 2024
New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.5a7
Ways to contribute
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-tn3-2023
Published on 2024-02-28
Latest blog posts
Defending access to information during the Year of Democracy
2024 has been dubbed the "Year of Democracy" with over 65 elections taking place globally and roughly 2 billion people casting their votes this year. We have seen spikes of censorship events around elections. In this context, Tor and Tor-powered apps can protect and defend our right to freely access information.
We put together a guide on how at-risk users can prepare themselves for upcoming elections by downloading Tor-powered applications like Tor Browser, Orbot, Tails, and OnionShare before election censorship happens.
For these tools to work effectively, we all need to work together. Please consider volunteering by running a Snowflake proxy or Tor bridge. But there are many more ways to get involved and expand global access to Tor: from organizing Tor trainings to providing translations, documenting online censorship or advocating against internet shutdowns. Find out more here:Â https://blog.torproject.org/2024-defend-internet-freedom-during-elections.
2023 year-end fundraising results 🎉
Another great way to support the Tor Project's efforts is by donating--and that's what so many of you have done. From October through December 2023, you answered the call for support by contributing $427,558 to power the Tor network, Tor Browser, onion services, Snowflake, and the ecosystem of tools and services built and maintained by the Tor Project.
Everyone in our community deserves a big THANK YOU for supporting the Tor Project during the campaign. Whether you made a donation, shared the campaign on social media, or spread the world about the importance of using Tor, your contributions are vital to achieving our mission. Your impact was then amplified by the Friends of Tor who provided the generous match during the campaign.
Learn more about what your contributions will make possible in 2024: https://blog.torproject.org/2023-fundraising-results-thank-you
Empowering young minds
Earlier this month, we sat down with Matthias Kirschner, President of the FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe) to talk about a children's book he has authored exploring the themes of the internet, free and open source technology, and its vital role for democracy.\
In Ada & Zangemann, the young hardware enthusiast, Ada, takes on Zangeman, an inventor who begins controlling all of the world's computerized devices to do exactly what he wants. As part of our conversation, we gained some valuable insights for parents, caretakers, and educators seeking ways to talk about technology in accessible and child-friendly ways. You can read the full interview here: https://blog.torproject.org/i-love-free-software-day-interview-fsfe/
Job Openings
We're always looking for great people to join our team. Be sure to check out our latest open positions. Work remotely from wherever you are to help us achieve our mission of making free, open-source, and privacy-preserving technology available to everyone.
🦀 Rust Developer (Network Team)
💻 Browser Software Engineer (Applications Team)
Keeping up with the latest releases
February 27, 2024
New Release: Tails 6.0
February 20, 2024
New Release: Tor Browser 13.0.10
February 5, 2024
Arti 1.1.13 is released: onion services development
February 1, 2024
New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.5a4
Upcoming events
March 2nd, 2024
Tor Relay Operator Meetup
Connect with other Tor relay operators, share, exchange, and discuss ideas on how we can make the Tor network stronger.
April 15, 2024 - April 19, 2024
SINFO
Biggest free tech conference in Portugal: It's an annual conference that takes place at the Alameda Campus of TĂ©cnico Lisboa, in the capital city of Portugal, Lisbon. Roger Dingledine, Tor Project Co-founder and Research Director will be in attendance.
March 25, 2024 -- March 27, 2024
AISA CANBERRA CyberCon
The Australian Cyber Conference - Canberra will provide business leaders with insights and best practices taught by the industry's top experts through keynotes, panel sessions and live demonstrations -- in person. Roger Dingledine, Co-founder & Research Director of The Tor Project, will deliver a keynote address on March 27th.
April 8, 2024 - April 10, 2024
FOSSASIA Summit 2024
Taking place in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, the FOSSASIA Summit has become a platform for developers, enthusiasts, and industry leaders to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange. Roger Dingledine, Co-founder & Research Director of The Tor Project, will speak at the event.
ICYMI: Replay of recent events
Tor censorship attempts in Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan
Watch Tor President & Co-founder Roger Dingledine's presentation from #37C3
Launch of Tor's Postbox, a testimony hub featuring stories from Tor users worldwide Hear from digital rights advocates, journalists and other online privacy experts who shared insights about the challenges to encryption, online privacy, and digital freedom in 2024.
Ways to contribute
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://torproject.org/donate/donate-tn3-2023
Published on 2023-12-07
December 2023 Tor News
Dear Tor Community,
From welcoming Amnesty International as our latest member in the onion services community to shoring up the Tor network and hosting our annual State of the Onion, the Tor Project's teams remain focused on making an impact in people's lives. We want to give special thanks to everyone who has shared their story and participated in our recent survey about the importance of encryption – the response rate has been incredible – and on top of being insightful, your contributions will go a long way to improving our advocacy and outreach efforts.
Remember, from now on through December 31st, your donation will be matched by our Friends of Tor–which means that a $25 donation will automatically become $50 until the end of this year.
– Thank you for being an essential part of the Tor Project's community.
Tor news
Amnesty International now available as .onion
You may have noticed that we recently removed a large number of relays from the Tor network. We did this to protect network health and the safety and security of our community and users. This process has sparked larger discussions within our teams and community members about the state of Tor relay policies and the potential for incentivization models that can better support our relay operators and the growth of the Tor network. It has also encouraged us to reflect more deeply on our mission and the role of free, open-source technology.
For these reasons, we published a blog post to highlight past research exploring incentivization models for relay operators, and to provide insight into the rationale behind our recent actions to protect the network from bad actors: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-network-community-health-update/
Safeguarding the Tor network: our commitment to network health and supporting relay operators
As part of a recently completed project, we've made Tor Browser, Tor circumvention tools, Tor documentation and training materials, and OnionShare available in Arabic, Chinese, and Swahili. We've used the occasion to develop short, localized explainer videos to demystify Tor's usage, from bypassing censorship to secure file sharing. These resources are designed to help everyone easily utilize Tor tools in their daily lives: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-tutorials/
Transparency, openness, and our 2021-2022 financials
Did you know that almost a third of our annual revenue comes from individual donors? These gifts come in all different forms (including ten different cryptocurrencies, which are then converted to USD): Some people donate $5 to the Tor Project one time, some donate $100 every month, and some make large gifts annually. The common thread is that individual donations are unrestricted funds, and a very important kind of support. Unrestricted funds allow us to respond to censorship events, develop our tools in a more agile way, and ensure we have reserves to keep Tor strong in case of emergencies.
If you didn't know, make sure to check out our 2021-2022 fiscal report: https://blog.torproject.org/transparency-openness-and-our-2021-and-2022-financials/
And, if you want to maximize your donation this year, now is the time! From now on through December 31st, your donation will be matched by our Friends of Tor–which means that a $25 donation will automatically become $50 until the end of this year.
Keeping up with the latest releases
New Release: Tor Browser 13.0.6 (Desktop)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1306/
Arti 1.1.11 is released: More onion progress
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_1_1_11_released/
New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.5a2
https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-135a2/
New Release: Tor Browser 13.0.3 (Android)
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1303/
Recent events
State of the Onion 2023
The end of the year is traditionally a great moment for reflection–which is exactly what we've done during our annual State of the Onion: a virtual, two-day event highlighting the work of our teams and community to showcase the impact Tor technology has made across the globe during the year. If you've missed the livestream, you can watch the recast here:
Ways to contribute
- Can you make a recurring donation? Set up a monthly donation. This is the best, most impactful way to help the Tor Project budget during uncertain times.
- Can you make a one-time gift? Make a donation through our website by credit card or PayPal; through the mail by cash, check, or money order; through a stock donation or bank transfer; and many more options listed in our FAQ.
- Do you have a company or organization that uses Tor or believes in Tor? Become a member.
- Does your company match donations made by employees? Make a donation and file the paperwork with your organization so they match your gift. Let us know if you need help!
- Do you have cryptocurrency to give? We can accept donations in ten different coins.
- Do you have 7 minutes to participate in our survey? This is a priceless contribution to supporting our critical advocacy and outreach efforts. The survey is anonymous and also available as a .onion for an added layer of security.
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
Published on 2023-10-30
Right now, Tor is protecting the privacy of millions of people like you!
Dear Tor Community,
Your support has been instrumental in enabling us to protect the digital rights and privacy of millions around the world. As we launch our annual fundraising campaign, we want to acknowledge the unprecedented challenges, including continued geo-political unrest, the far-reaching effects of tech-sector layoffs, and a significant decrease in charitable giving across the board.
Despite these hurdles, we remain steadfast in our dedication to making Tor's technology accessible to everyone: from accessibility and UI improvements in the latest Tor Browser release, important security fixes to outreach and education efforts as well as our advocacy work.
Like so many of you have demonstrated throughout the years, there are many ways to contribute. Whether it is in the form of monetary donations or by donating bandwidth, by running a relay or bridge to help censored users access Tor, if you are in a position to help, please do. Even if it is just by spreading the word.
– Thank you for being an essential part of the Tor Project's community.
Tor News
Introducing proof-of-work defense for onion services
Over the past year, we have put a lot of work into mitigating attacks on the Tor network and enhancing its defenses for onion services which culminated in the introduction of a proof-of-work (PoW) defense in the release of Tor 0.4.8. This dynamic PoW mechanism prioritizes real users while deterring attackers, making large-scale DoS attacks impractical. Find out how it works and why it matters: https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-proof-of-work-defense-for-onion-services/
A closer look at online privacy with new Tor tutorials
As part of a recently completed project, we've made Tor Browser, Tor circumvention tools, Tor documentation and training materials, and OnionShare available in Arabic, Chinese, and Swahili. We've used the occasion to develop short, localized explainer videos to demystify Tor's usage, from bypassing censorship to secure file sharing. These resources are designed to help everyone easily utilize Tor tools in their daily lives: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-tutorials/
Encryption's critical role in safeguarding human Rights
The Tor Project's mission is to advance human rights. For us that means not only by building and deploying technology, but also by advocating for the protection and unrestricted availability of privacy-preserving technologies like encryption. Over this past year, we have initiated or contributed to a variety of advocacy efforts to ensure access to encryption and push back against government efforts that seek to undermine it -- from signing letters and supporting ally organizations on a number of advocacy and awareness campaigns to expanding our outreach and training efforts.
Most recently, we co-organized and co-hosted a workshop at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) -- an annual meeting established by the United Nations in 2005 as a forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue concerning public policy issues relating to the internet. The panel entitled Encryption's Critical Role in Safeguarding Human Rights brought together professionals from the technology, non-profit, policy, human rights and advocacy spaces to discuss balancing the demands of national security with the protection of individual privacy, adherence to international human rights laws and seeking a global approach. The panelists discussed a number of measures that could help shape a human-rights-centric regulatory framework for encryption, all of which are outlined in our session report.
Tor Browser 13.0 has arrived -- and the Torbutton has retired
Over time, Tor Browser has come a long way and undergone several transformations to simplify its user interface and improve functionality. The recent Tor Browser 13.0 release features notable accessibility improvements, refreshed application icons, homepage features, and bigger new windows. This release also marks the removal of legacy code associated with the Torbutton -- a step toward better integration and a seamless transition to the new Arti implementation written in Rust.
User experience remains a top priority, and feedback is encouraged. Further refinements, like migrating to Fluent for translation files, are in the pipeline. Share your thoughts and report any issues in the Tor forum or bug tracker. Thanks to all of the teams across Tor, and the wider community, who contributed their expertise, labor, and time to this release.
Read all about the recent update here and bid farewell to the Torbutton here.
Keeping up with the latest releases
New Release: Tor Browser 13.0.2 (Android) - October 27, 2023
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-1302
Arti 1.1.9 is released: Assembling the onions -Â October 3, 2023
Arti 1.1.9 continues work on support for onion services in arti. We now have the code needed to publish onion service descriptors; keep them up-to-date with changes and our introduction points; receive, decrypt, process, and answer introduction requests; and respond to them by delivering traffic to local ports. The pieces are now (mostly) connected; the next month of development will see extensive testing, bugfixing, and refinement.
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_119_released/
Upcoming Events
State of the Onion 2023 -- November 29, 2023
SAVE THE DATE for this year's State of the Onion. This is our annual virtual event where we share updates from Tor Project's teams and community, highlighting their work and the impact it has made across the globe during the year.
Ways to contribute
- Can you make a recurring donation? Set up a monthly donation. This is the best, most impactful way to help the Tor Project budget during uncertain times.
- Can you make a one-time gift? Make a donation through our website by credit card or PayPal; through the mail by cash, check, or money order; through a stock donation or bank transfer; and many more options listed in our FAQ.
- Do you have a company or organization that uses Tor or believes in Tor? Become a member.
- Does your company match donations made by employees? Make a donation and file the paperwork with your organization so they match your gift. Let us know if you need help!
- Do you have cryptocurrency to give? We can accept donations in ten different coins.
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org
Published on 2023-07-25
Update Tor Browser with our latest major release
Many of the features in this 12.5 release were made possible thanks to two projects, our work with journalists and human rights defenders in the Global South and the launch of the Mullvad Browser. Both those projects have allowed us to address legacy issues, implement efficiencies to the build release, and increase accessibility.
The result is a standalone, cohesive, and mature user experience that is pushing Tor Browser even more towards the mainstream in terms of quality and UI. This version features an updated circuit display, new icons for .onion sites, improvements to the connection experience and accessibility, Finnish language support and more. For a complete overview, you can learn more in our blog post.
Self-hosting the Tor Project users forum
We launched the Tor Project users forum to continue to grow the Tor community and experiment with new ways to gather feedback and provide support. After a year and a half of utilizing free cloud hosting graciously provided by the team behind Discourse, in early June we moved our forum to the Tor Project's own server infrastructure.
Apart from giving us more control over the forum's configuration, we can now provide an experimental onion service for our users accessing the platform via the Tor network. Be sure to bookmark the new address: forum.torproject.org. (For the time being, the old address will automatically redirect visitors to the new one.)
If you ran into any issues following the migration or want to learn more about 2FA, check out our blog post.
Call for Testers - WebTunnel, a new pluggable transport for bridges, now available for deployment
We're excited to announce WebTunnel, a new bridge pluggable transport (PT) for the Tor ecosystem. It is a censor resistant proxy that try to imitate HTTPS traffic, based on HTTPT 23 research. We are currently operating a trial soft launch for WebTunnel, and encourage bridge operators to set up WebTunnel bridges to discover issues within the implementation of this new pluggable transport.
Check out our forum post with more info on how it works, the technical requirements and how to report issues.
Empowering human rights defenders in Brazil, Ecuador & Mexico
When we established our Global South Strategy in 2017, we created a user feedback program to improve the user experience of our products involving ethical usability research with at-risk communities alongside digital security training. In 2021 we expanded this program to Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico based on the increasing threats and violence against marginalized groups, activists, journalists, and human rights defenders. We also partnered with the Guardian Project and Tails - two other organizations who are equally committed to defending human rights and internet freedom with privacy preserving technology.
During the past two years we have collaborated closely to combat internet censorship and surveillance to provide digital security training workshops in the three countries, reaching 47 human rights organizations and training 674 journalists and defenders. The program focused on applications such as Onion Browser, Orbot, Tails, and Tor Browser, with improvements made based on user feedback and pain points identified during the sessions. The workshops highlighted challenges faced by participants, such as expensive and unreliable internet access, browsing data monetization, and difficulty distinguishing between censorship and connectivity issues. The training aimed to provide participants with self-defense measures, knowledge of tools, and the ability to identify censorship and use circumvention techniques.
In June we shared our findings which were used to develop improvements for the applications, including a new circuit display and refined connection settings for Tor Browser, simplified usage steps and improved user experience for Orbot, and restructuring of documentation and validation of features for Tails.
Tor Relay Operators - Proposal for New Policies and Proposals
In the past, our approach to organizing the Tor relay operator community was highly informal and relied heavily on discussions and interactions in meetups and similar events between operators, Directory Authorities, and The Tor Project staff. However, as the Tor Community expands and its members become less interconnected, there is now a necessity to establish a well-defined process for presenting and evaluating proposals and policies to the relay operator community.
Find out more about how we have revised the process for submitting policies to the Tor relay operator community, how proposals are approved, and the relationship between Tor Community proposals and the Tor Project.
Keeping up with the latest releases
Tails 5.14 - June 13, 2023
It's a major version with a new backup feature in Tails Installer, automatic upgrade of the Persistent Storage to LUKS2, and captive portal detection.
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tails-514/
New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 12.5a7 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux) - June 9, 2023
https://blog.torproject.org/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-125a7/
Arti 1.1.5 is released: Onion Services, RPC, and a security patch -    June 1, 2023
For onion services this month, we have continued work on our protocol infrastructure to support the cryptographic handshakes and protocols used for onion services, and begun design work on a key management system for onion services.
https://blog.torproject.org/arti_115_released/
Upcoming Events
Usenix Security, California, August 9, 2023 - August 11, 2023
The USENIX Security Symposium brings together researchers, practitioners, system administrators, system programmers, and others interested in the latest advances in the security and privacy of computer systems and networks.
https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/
Defcon, Las Vegas, August 10, 2023 - August 13, 2023
DEF CON is one of the oldest continuously running hacker conventions around, and also one of the largest. Members of the Tor Project will be speaking on Saturday, August 12th at 12.00pm, and you can come visit us at our booth. For more information on our talk, you can visit: https://defcon.org/html/defcon-31/dc-31-schedule.html#saturday
Chaos Communication Camp, August 15, 2023 - August 19, 2023
The Chaos Communication Camp is an international, five-day open-air event for hackers and associated life-forms. It provides a relaxed atmosphere for free exchange of technical, social, and political ideas.
Check out the program: https://events.ccc.de/camp/
The Global Gathering by Team Community, September 15, 2023 - September 17, 2023
This year's gathering will have a much more decentralized format and approach to previous instances. If you are not able to participate this year, do not worry, this is just the beginning. Keep up to date with the latest event info and how to participate here: https://www.digitalrights.community/blog/announcing-team-communitys-global-gathering
Join Our Community
Getting involved with Tor is easy. Run a relay to make the network faster and more decentralized: https://community.torproject.org/relay
Run a bridge to help censored users access Tor: https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-internet
Learn about more opportunities to start collaborating: https://community.torproject.org
Donate to help keep Tor fast, strong, and secure. https://donate.torproject.org