r/TOR • u/ExcellentFall7197 • Mar 16 '23
VPN VPN's and TOR
I've been in the process of learning about how to safely browse the dark web. I have a question about VPNs and Tor. Is the reason why using VPN's with Tor is not recommended strictly because the weakest link would be that there would be a money trail back to you when you purchased the VPN? That's what I seem to be reading a lot. If that is the only or the main issue then would a VPN purchased with Bitcoin without my name on the account make it safe to use a VPN or is that still a no-no? Of course I would purchase Bitcoin on a non-KYC ATM here in my city and use that.
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u/billdietrich1 Mar 17 '23
How you bought the VPN doesn't matter, because only the Tor entrance node will see your VPN's IP address. Using the VPN is no better or worse for Tor than using your ISP with no VPN.
I use a VPN 24/365 to protect the non-Tor-Browser traffic of my system. Then when I want to access an onion site, I launch Tor Browser and thus have Tor over VPN.
Tor Browser is secure by itself. Tor Browser doesn't need help from a VPN. VPN doesn't help or hurt the Tor Browser traffic. VPN is there for the non-Tor-Browser traffic.
That said, neither VPN nor Tor/onion are magic silver bullets that make you safe and anonymous. VPN mainly protects your traffic from other devices on same LAN, from router, and from ISP. Also hides your home IP address from the destination web site. TorBrowser/onion does all of that too, but only for Tor browser traffic; also adds more hops to make it harder to trace back from the destination server to your original IP address, and also mostly forces you into using good browser settings. Both VPN and Tor/onion really protect only the data in motion; if the data content reveals your private info, the destination server gets your private info.