Whenever people talk about Tor, a few key concerns are consistently brought up: performance, security and network health, censorship circumvention, an

2024: Year in Review

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2025-01-09 07:00:03

Whenever people talk about Tor, a few key concerns are consistently brought up: performance, security and network health, censorship circumvention, and compatibility for third-party integrations. These are essential priorities of the Tor Project's work, and this year we've made significant progress in each of these areas. As we reflect on the past year, let's revisit some of our new and ongoing projects that address these core questions and challenges.

Onion Services improvements: Onion Services are a communication technology for exchanging data using the Tor network. They provide end-to-end encryption and enhanced anonymity by keeping all communication within the Tor network. In 2024, we launched OnionSpray, a plug-and-play toolkit making it easier to convert existing websites into .onion domains. OnionSpray functions as a proxy, allowing existing websites to seamlessly integrate with Onion Services. By simplifying the setup, operators can quickly benefit from the censorship resistance and denial-of-service protection of .onion sites without modifying their existing infrastructure. For a deeper dive, check out the case study from one of our early adopters.

Vanguards support: As of this summer, Arti supports Vanguards, a defense against guard discovery attacks targeting onion services and onion service clients. First introduced in 2018 as an add-on to v3 onion services, Vanguards serve to mitigate the risk of de-anonymization attacks and keep users safe.