Tor (The Onion Router) was developed during the early 2000s by Naval Research Lab and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In addition to surfing anonymously and in secrecy, Tor also allows for hosting specially designed hidden websites, a.k.a., onion sites, that are accessible only through Tor network. Additionally, encrypting data multiple times in layers further prevents prying eyes from eavesdropping and analyzing your data.
This mechanism of exchanging traffic over a number of onion routers makes it extremely hard for anyone to identify the source of the information. onion routers, are non-proprietary and operated by thousands of volunteers around the world. Fundamentally, it hides the IP addresses of its users (anonymity) in addition to encrypting (secrecy) the traffic while browsing online. Tor achieves this privacy and security by routing Internet traffic through specially crafted relays that encrypts and decrypts transient data in a layered fashion. Tor (short for The Onion Router) is an open source project and a free software that aims to provide online privacy and anonymity for browsing the Internet. In this article, we explain how to use Tor safely to strictly protect their online privacy, Tor users should follow carefully the tips and guidelines outlined in this article.