COMPARISON
TOR
VPN
HIDING TRAFFIC FROM ISP AND EAVESDROPPERS
☑ Hides activity from the ISP and anyone watching the connection by routing it through the decentalized TOR network.
☐ Hides activity from the ISP and anyone wathcing the connection, however the centralized VPN can still see all activity.
CIRCUMVENTING CENSORSHIP
☑ Bypasses censorship by hiding connections' destination and rerouting the connection past the censor.
☑ Bypasses censorship by hiding connections' destination and rerouting the connection past the censor.
PROVODING ANONYMITY / PROTECTING FROM TRACKING
☑ Obfuscates all information about traffic by routing it through three independent TOR nods.
☑ Tor Browser fixes leaks if identifying information usual browsers have.
☑ Tor Bbrowser makes all Tor users look the same making it impossible to identify a single user.
☑ Provides very strong anonymity.
☒ Only hides the IP adress.
☒ The VPN can see all activity.
☒ Does not protect from many leaks of identifying information.
☒ Does not prevent tracking techniques such as cookies or fingerprinting.
CONNECTION SPEED
☒ Slow connection speed and high latency.
☑ Only slightly decreased connection speed and latency.
ACCESSING GEO-BLOCKED CONTENT
☐ Can be used to access geo-blocked content.
☐ Country of the exit node visible the site is random by default, changing this configuration is difficult and can weaken the provided anonymity.
☑ Can be used to access geo-blocked content.
☑ Allows to set the country of the VPN server easily.
TRUST AND RESISTANCE
☑ Privacy by design.
☑ All trafic is routed through three independent Tor nodes, each node only knows the hop before and after it. No party knows the identity of the user and the activity it performs at the same time.
☑ Entirely open source and always reviewed by security experts.
☒ Privacy by policy.
☒ All trafic is reouted through a centralized VPN server that knows the identity and all activity of the user.
☒ Single point of failure.
☒ The user has to fully trust the VPN provider for not logging any connections and securing its infrastructure against attacks without any guarantee.
☒ Software might be open source and audited depending on the provider.
⚠️ REMINDER ABOUT VPNs
- A VPN won't give you complete anonymity.
- Your privacy isn't always guaranteed.
- Using a VPN is illegal in some countries.
- A safe, top quality VPN will cost you money.
- VPNs almost always slow your connection speed.
- Using a VPN on mobile increase data usage.
- Some online services try to ban VPN users.
- VPN won't protect you from malware or phishing attacks.
- Most VPNs fail to bypass censorship and streaming blocks.
- A lot of VPNs are outright dangerous to use.