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For example, Flash and other browser plug-ins can reveal your IP address – the Tor Browser Bundle disables plug-ins for you and provides a safe environment, so you don’t have to worry about your browser settings. You can use Tor with other browsers and browser configurations, but this is likely to be unsafe. The Tor Browser Bundle is a customized, portable version of Firefox that comes preconfigured with the ideal settings and extensions for TOr. The Tor Project recommends the Tor Browser Bundle as the safest, easiest way to use Tor.
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If you want more detailed information about how Tor works, check out the Tor Project’s website. While the architecture does a good job of offering anonymity, browsing through Tor is significantly slower than browsing normally. It’s not a great idea to use Tor for normal browsing, though. Whistleblowers can use Tor to leak information without their traffic being monitored and logged. Tor offers anonymity and a path through Internet censorship and monitoring – people living under repressive regimes with censored Internet connections can use Tor to access the wider Internet without fear of reprisal. (Of course, traffic can be monitored at the exit node if you’re accessing an unencrypted website.) The exit node passes the traffic back along the relays, and the relays don’t know where it ends up. The exit node talks to Google for you – from Google’s perspective, the exit node is accessing their website.
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The Tor relays pass your traffic along until it eventually reaches an exit node. Your Internet service provider and local network operator can’t see that you’re accessing – they just see encrypted Tor traffic. For example, let’s say you access through Tor.
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