You can’t learn the website’s real IP address, and the website can’t learn yours either. If you load an onion site in Tor Browser, both you and the web server bounce encrypted data packets through the Tor network until you complete an anonymous connection, and no one can track anyone involved: Your ISP can only see that you’re using Tor, and the website’s ISP can only see that it’s using Tor. Instead of using normal domain names, these websites end with “.onion”. So what exactly is an onion service? Just like when people use Tor Browser to be anonymous, web servers can use Tor to host anonymous websites as well. Tor Onion Services Let Websites Themselves Be Anonymous Tor onion services do the same thing, except for websites themselves. In short, Tor Browser makes it so people can load websites anonymously. The first node can see your home IP address, because you connect directly to it, but can’t see what site you’re loading, and the last node (also called the exit node) can see what site you’re loading but doesn’t know your IP address. And the Tor nodes themselves can’t fully track you either. Your ISP can’t see what website you’re visiting, only that you’re using Tor. The website can’t see where you’re coming from, only that you’re using Tor. Instead, your connection first bounces between three Tor nodes and then finally exits the Tor network and goes to the website.

Within the network, consisting of thousands of nodes run by volunteers across the internet, you do not connect from your house directly to the web server. Even Tor itself won’t know what you’re up to. The website can see where you are coming from (and track you), and your internet service provider can see which website you’re loading (and track what you’re doing and sell advertising based on your activity).īut if you open Tor Browser and load the same website, none of those parties can spy on you. When you load a website in a normal web browser like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge, you make a connection over the internet directly from your house (or wherever you happen to be) to the web server you’re loading. Tor Browser Lets People Browse the Web Anonymously Websites that end in “.onion” are known as Tor onion services - or if you want to be dramatic about it, the “dark web.” Here’s how it all works.

Tor onion symbol