The project defends against surveillance of all kinds. This doesn’t just mean hackers-Tor wants to keep your activity out of the hands of the government, too. They aim to create software that people can use to keep their information, history, and activities private and safe from prying eyes. According to the creators, their mission is to “advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.” The Onion Router, formally known as the Tor Project, became a nonprofit in 2006. Much like the layers of an onion, messages go through layers of encryption, bouncing off each other until the original source for the request can’t be traced. It works through onion routing, a technique browsers use for secret communication on computer networks. Tor is open-source free software created with the goal of enabling anonymous communication over the web. But Tor, the private “onion router” browser created by the Tor Project, works to keep connections private and free of tracking, allowing users to browse the Internet with as much anonymity as possible. There are private search engines like DuckDuckGo, but they aren’t as all-encompassing as a browser. Google and other search engines don’t value users’ privacy, collecting vast amounts of data. Finding an Internet browser that offers privacy to users is difficult to find.

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